15: A hunt with a slim chance of survival

"Ma Liu."

The moment he returned to the dormitory and closed the door, Chen Feng's voice sounded like a different person's; all warmth had been drained away, leaving only a cold, metallic quality.

"Boss..." Ma Liu shuddered subconsciously and lowered his head.

"You said before, where is the most well-informed place in the mining area?" Chen Feng asked without looking back as he neatly arranged the energy blocks and tool kit.

"It's... it's the public bathhouse and the cafeteria, Boss," Ma Liu stammered. "After everyone finishes work, they love to gather there to brag and complain; they talk about everything."

"Very good." Chen Feng turned around, broke off a quarter of a synthetic protein block from his own meal, and tossed it to Ma Liu.

Ma Liu caught it as if it were a hot potato, his face full of shock: "Boss, this..."

"This is your advance payment." Chen Feng's eyes held not a trace of warmth. "I need you to go to these two places and do something for me."

"You... just give the order!"

"Use this food as bait," Chen Feng pointed to the protein block in Ma Liu's hand, "to fish for information from those old miners. I want to hear all the 'ghost stories' about the C-13 abandoned mining area—the scarier and more bizarre, the better. Remember, don't ask questions, just listen, and then come back and tell me every single word."

"Ghost... ghost stories?" Ma Liu was stunned.

"Do you not understand?" Chen Feng's voice turned cold.

"I understand! I understand! I'm going right now!" Ma Liu jolted, and clutching the protein block that could be traded for a life, he scrambled out of the room.

About an hour later, as the sky grew dark, Ma Liu slipped back into Chen Feng's dormitory, covered in steam and fear.

"Boss, I... I found out." He lowered his voice, as if ghosts were following him. "They say, they say the C-13 Mining Area is a grave for the living!"

"Get to the point." Chen Feng was swiping rapidly on a terminal; it was the 'official geological map' Bachm had given him.

"Yes!" Ma Liu swallowed hard and said urgently, "Several old-timers said there's a 'Silent Zone' inside C-13. Any communication equipment that goes in becomes mute; there's no signal at all!"

Chen Feng's finger tapped on a region on the map.

"What else?"

"Others say that over ten years ago, a patrol team drove an armored vehicle in and never came out. Later, the company sent people to look; the vehicle was still there, but the people... gone! Not even a scrap of bone could be found!"

"Continue."

"The strangest thing is, more than one person said that at the edge of the 'Silent Zone,' they saw... saw a white shadow flash by! Like, like a faceless ghost!"

Chen Feng stopped his operations. He matched all the locations Ma Liu mentioned with the markings on the map in his mind.

"White shadow... communication blackout... entire team missing..." he murmured to himself.

Then, he opened the Interstellar Exchange interface, paid 0.01 credits, and exchanged them for a simple 'Keyword Association Analysis' plugin. He input all the 'ghost stories' from Ma Liu's mouth and the data from the official geological map.

On the screen, the chaotic flow of information began to rapidly reorganize and categorize.

Soon, a new 3D map emerged before Chen Feng's eyes. All the horror legends, disappearance incidents, and eyewitness reports were like red pushpins, eerily pointing to the same area.

There, on Bachm's official map, it was only briefly labeled as 'unstable geological structure.'

Chen Feng then overlaid his hypothesized location of the 'harmonic noise' source with this 'haunted' area.

The two irregular circles overlapped almost perfectly.

"So it's here." The corner of Chen Feng's mouth curled into a cold arc. "Bachm, you really didn't have good intentions."

He turned off the terminal, picked up the maintenance tools and several spare parts he had 'borrowed' from the scrap yard, and stood up to head for the door.

He was going to upgrade his robot and make final preparations for this hunt with slim odds.

However, when he pulled open the dormitory door, a figure blocked the way like a wall, standing silently outside.

It was Reno.

"Captain Reno," Chen Feng spoke calmly, as if not at all surprised by his appearance.

"Number 734." Reno's voice was colder than the wind in the mines. In his gray eyes, there was no longer any of the previous inquiry or curiosity; there was only the indifference of official business, and a deeply hidden... disdain.

"You're currently a favorite in front of the Manager; I'm very happy for you." Reno's words didn't sound happy at all. "But I want to 'warn' you of something."

"Please, speak."

"Bachm isn't an easy master to serve." Reno stared into Chen Feng's eyes, emphasizing every word. "The bones he throws to a dog are always far less than the meat he wants to gnaw off the dog's body. Don't get yourself killed for a few bones; it's not worth it."

These words were a warning, and even more so, a sentence.

It pronounced Chen Feng's position in his heart—a smarter, greedier dog.

Chen Feng was silent for a moment. He saw through the disappointment beneath Reno's cold mask.

But he didn't explain himself; his expression didn't even change in the slightest.

He just looked up, met Reno's gaze, and asked softly in return:

"Captain Reno, do you think people like us, who have been engraved with numbers since birth, have the right to choose our masters?"

Reno's pupils constricted suddenly.

"The only thing we can choose," Chen Feng's voice was terrifyingly calm, yet it was like an invisible heavy hammer slamming into Reno's heart, "is the way we survive."

"..."

Reno's lips moved, but he couldn't say a single word.

Those words were like a rusty key shoved into the depths of his long-buried memories. He remembered how he had gone from a hot-blooded rebel to someone numb after repeated bloody suppressions and the deaths of his companions, eventually putting on this Guard Team uniform and becoming part of the order he once hated most.

He had chosen to survive through numbness.

And this Number 734 before him chose to survive by... being a dog?

No, that wasn't right.

Reno looked at Chen Feng's eyes, which were as still as an ancient well, and for the first time, he realized he completely could not see through this man.

Silently and slowly, he stepped aside.

Chen Feng didn't say another word. Carrying his toolbox, he brushed past him and walked toward the maintenance workshop in the distance.

Once inside the workshop and shielded from outside eyes, Chen Feng finally let out an imperceptible sigh of relief.

Reno's wavering was a double-edged sword.

It could become an aid in the future, or it could immediately lead to stricter surveillance.

But he had no choice.

Before entering that land of death, he had to give every movable piece on the chessboard a gentle push.

He needed variables.

The more variables there were, the better he could confuse the hyenas' sight, giving him, the prey, a chance to show his fangs.