42: Deals on the Eve of the Storm

"Disperse!"

Chen Feng's voice was like an ice blade, instantly cutting through the faint sparks that had just ignited in the refinery.

"Everyone, take your weapons and return to your hiding spots immediately! No movement without my command! Remember, from this moment on, you are dead men!"

His orders were brief, urgent, and devoid of any emotion.

The team, which had only just begun to take shape, instantly scattered like startled birds and beasts, disappearing into the massive mechanical shadows.

Lao Mo walked up to him carrying a gun, his voice dry. "What happened?"

"The storm arrived early." Chen Feng didn't look at him; his gaze pierced through the darkness as if he could already see the vessel of death descending.

He remained alone in the dark factory building, surrounded by cold steel and deathly silent air. His brain, however, was operating at an unprecedented high speed.

Fighting head-on meant death.

Sitting still and waiting for death also meant death.

The only chance for survival lay in chaos. By utilizing the internal conflicts of the enemy and the information gap between them, he could create a fleeting window of chaos that would allow him to ignite the entire mining area.

He opened his terminal again and sent a meeting request to Reno. The location was in the shadow of the mining area's communication relay tower.

"Who are they? How many?" Chen Feng asked point-blank the moment they met.

"It's Xing Zhan! Giant Star Mining's craziest dog!" Reno's emotions were like those of a trapped beast as he roared in a low voice. "His 'Scavenger' unit! One ship, at least a reinforced company of troops! All professional soldiers! They will take over the mining area's defenses in six hours, at dawn! By then, my men will be disarmed, and we'll all be separated for interrogation! We're finished!"

"Six hours..." Chen Feng chewed on the timing, but his eyes were exceptionally calm.

"We have to act now!" Reno's eyes were bloodshot. "While Xing Zhan hasn't found his footing yet and is unfamiliar with the environment, we hit him by surprise! We still have a chance!"

"Hit him with what?" Chen Feng countered coldly. "With our thirty recruits who can't even hold a gun steady? Against over a hundred butchers who crawled out of blood?"

"Then what do you suggest?!" Reno was almost on the verge of collapse. "Wait for death?!"

"No." Chen Feng shook his head, a trace of a mad curve actually appearing at the corner of his mouth. "We have to ask someone for help."

"Who?!"

"Bachm."

Reno was stunned. He looked at Chen Feng as if he were looking at a madman. "Are you insane?!"

"I'm not insane." Chen Feng's voice was filled with a certain demonic allure. "What is Xing Zhan here for? Bachm requested him to 'assist with exploration.' But in Xing Zhan's eyes, he's just here to suppress a ridiculous riot and establish his authority. From the very beginning, there has been no trust between the two of them."

"What do you want to do?" Reno's breathing became rapid.

"I want you to go and 'inform' Bachm."

Chen Feng spoke word by word, each one like a nail being driven into Reno's brain.

"Tell him that I, Chen Feng, have found the real entrance to the treasure in Sector B, near Tunnel B-7. Tell him I've gathered a group of people and plan to bypass him tonight to seize the treasure for myself."

"Will he believe it?"

"He will. Because greed will make him believe anything he wants to believe." Chen Feng said with certainty. "At the same time, I will deliberately lead my people to expose our movements near Tunnel B-7. Bachm will take all his trusted aides there to corner me."

"And then?"

"Then, you, Captain Reno," Chen Feng's gaze stared at him intensely, "will at that same time, under the highest emergency status of 'discovering the main riot force gathering at Tunnel B-7 with intent to detonate the mine,' request military support from the newly arrived Commander Xing Zhan."

After hearing this, Reno sucked in a breath of cold air, his entire body drenched in cold sweat.

This plan was too crazy; every step was walking on the edge of a blade. Luring the two most vicious predators into the same small cage, while he himself was the bait.

He looked at Chen Feng's terrifyingly calm eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty as he asked hoarsely, "Aren't you... aren't you afraid I'll actually sell you out? That I'll take your head to claim credit from Xing Zhan?"

Chen Feng smiled.

It was a smile Reno had never seen before, a mix of disdain, confidence, and a hint of... pity.

"I never gamble on loyalty; that thing is too cheap."

He looked directly into Reno's eyes and said slowly, "What I'm gambling on is your choice for the future. I'm gambling on whether you still want to live like a human being, whether you're willing to bet everything at this table with me for the lives of your brothers."

"We are all placing bets for ourselves."

These words, like a bolt of lightning, completely tore through the last shred of hesitation and darkness in Reno's heart. Looking at this man who was so much younger than himself, he felt for the first time that what he was following might not be a conspirator, but a kind of madness he couldn't even understand himself, called "hope."

"...Fine." He squeezed a word out from between his teeth. "I'm in!"

After parting with Reno, Chen Feng didn't stay for a moment and immediately immersed his consciousness into the Interstellar Exchange.

Light and shadow shifted, and he appeared in the cold trading atrium, directly connecting to Sequence Zero's communication.

"Sequence Zero."

"Mr. Chen Feng. According to calculations, your survival probability is decreasing rapidly. Are you sure you want to contact me at this time?" Sequence Zero's emotionless composite electronic voice sounded.

"I need to make a deal," Chen Feng said directly.

"Please speak."

"I need to purchase one hour of 'regional computing power support' from your Mechanical Divine Court, and also rent a one-time 'low-orbit information masking service' for my current coordinates," Chen Feng said in a heavy voice.

Sequence Zero's blue light body fell silent. It wasn't human thought, but the high-speed calculation of a massive amount of information. A few seconds later, it spoke again: "This request exceeds the scope of our agreement. Based on risk assessment, providing such strategic-level services while your side's control is unstable poses too high a risk for us."

"If I fail," Chen Feng's voice remained calm, "that incredibly profitable exclusive supply order of yours will never be completed. Ashen Earth Star's 'undead crystals' will be buried in the dust of history along with my corpse."

"That is also a form of 'entropy increase,' it's just that it cannot be collected by us." Sequence Zero's answer remained logically clear.

"But if I die, you'll have to spend ten or a hundred times the cost to find the next supplier like me who can stably provide this 'entropy.' That's what you calculated, isn't it?"

Sequence Zero fell into silence again. This time, it lasted longer.

Finally, the light body brightened again: "The transaction request has been accepted. Three hundred thousand interstellar credit points will be deducted from your advance payment. The service will start at your designated time and last for one hour. Good luck, Mr. Chen Feng. Probabilistically speaking, you need it."

Communication cut off.

Dawn.

A line of pale light tore through the horizon of Ashen Earth Star.

Chen Feng stood alone on the lookout tower at the highest point of the mining area.

In the distance, a hideous warship with a hull as black as ink was tearing through the cloud layer, slowly descending with an unparalleled sense of pressure.

Xing Zhan had arrived.

He knew that all the chess pieces were in place.

Chen Feng opened his personal terminal, looked at the names of Reno and Ma Liu on the screen, and lightly pressed the signal button representing "Plan Start."

A storm ignited by his own hands, with everything at stake, was about to officially begin in Mining Area No. 7 of Ashen Earth Star.