52: The Price of Loyalty

"Speak." Chen Feng's tone was flat, as if he had long anticipated this moment.

Reno took a deep breath, and in his bloodshot eyes, a flicker of frantic and desperate hope ignited.

"If you can save A Yong..." He paused between every word, his voice trembling from extreme suppression, "Then my life, and the lives of my brothers who are willing to risk everything, will all be yours!"

Chen Feng's brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

"A Yong is already dead." He was stating a fact; based on his intelligence and understanding, Xing Zhan's final blow was enough to completely obliterate any carbon-based life form.

"No! He's not fully dead!" Reno retorted excitedly, "When I was collecting his... his body, I discovered a very low-frequency, abnormal muscular spasm!"

He explained urgently, "It's a 'suspended animation' state that our tribespeople enter when on the verge of death to deceive natural predators! His life is like the last spark in the wind—it could go out at any moment, but it's still there! It's still there! But... with the pathetic medical conditions in this mining area, there's no way to save him! I can only watch helplessly as he..."

Chen Feng fell silent.

"Take me to see him."

A hidden maintenance passage led to a food cold storage unit that Reno had disguised with a "cooling unit failure" sign.

A bone-chilling cold rushed toward them.

A Yong's battered and broken body lay quietly on a cold metal table. A few crude cables were connected to his body, and on a dim vital signs monitor nearby, the curve representing his heartbeat was nearly a flat line, only twitching feebly and almost imperceptibly after long intervals.

Chen Feng stepped forward, reached out his hand, and his consciousness sank into the system.

[Scanning target life form...]

[Scan complete. Report: Target's vital signs are below 0.1%. Extensive disruption of the central nervous system, multi-organ failure. Causal damage caused by high-dimensional weaponry is irreversibly eroding the foundational base of its existence.]

[Evaluating rescue plan...]

[Plan generated: Requires Grade-A life support technical assistance. Core required item: [nerve regeneration gel] (High-dimensional product). Estimated total cost: 150,000 interstellar credit points. Estimated success rate: 17.4%.]

One hundred and fifty thousand!

This number made Chen Feng's heart tighten suddenly.

This was nearly half of the entire budget he had prepared to arm his core team for the uprising!

He looked up and saw Reno's face, covered in hideous scars, filled with hope, pleading, and despair.

In Chen Feng's mind, the scales of logic swayed wildly.

One hundred and fifty thousand credit points could buy fifty of the latest model Gauss rifles, arming fifty elite soldiers, which would be enough to play a decisive role in the uprising.

And to use this money to gamble on a rescue with less than a twenty percent success rate... if it failed, it would be a total loss.

But... Chen Feng's gaze fell upon Reno.

An absolutely loyal, exceptionally capable military Commander who could bring the entire core leadership of the Guard Team... what was his value?

Incalculable.

This was an investment in "loyalty," a high-leverage gamble.

The risk was extremely high.

The reward was also extremely high.

Chen Feng looked up, staring straight into Reno's eyes.

He didn't haggle, he didn't analyze the pros and cons, and he didn't show even a hint of hesitation.

In a tone that brooked no argument, as if he were issuing an order, he said word for word:

"Prepare the operating table. I'm going to get the medicine."

"From now on, his life is mine."

"And your life is mine as well."

Reno, a hardened man who hadn't even blinked under Xing Zhan's torture, felt his eyes suddenly redden the moment he heard those words.

Chen Feng stopped looking at him, his consciousness fully submerged into the Interstellar Exchange, a realm composed of data and streams of light.

He quickly typed [nerve regeneration gel] into the search bar, and a massive amount of information flooded in. He filtered out the exorbitantly priced official manufacturers and went directly into the most chaotic area, where he was most likely to find a bargain: the "Chaos Market District."

Soon, he locked onto a target.

Product Name: [nerve regeneration gel - Potent Version]

Price: 100,000 interstellar credit points.

Seller ID: Xilos.

credit rating: Three stars (Warning: This trader has multiple records of fraud).

And below the flowery product description, there was a line of warning in the smallest font, almost illegible:

"Note: Use of this product in a low-dimensional universe may trigger unpredictable dimensional rejection reactions. The seller is not responsible for the user eventually turning into a puddle of screaming protein slime or any other form of unspeakable horror."