137: A Secret (5.2K views, please support!)

Bosses, regarding the follow-up, I’ll address it all at once. Hi~ o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

Next, there’s still a small segment of Earth’s storyline, and then Earth will be completely conquered. (•̀ ω •́)y

We’ll start focusing on conquering the Moon, then move out through the Achilles Rift, which means leaving the Solar System. ┏ (゜ω゜)=☞

I plan to write this book long and sincerely. (*^_^*)

So, Jiang Feng’s path is one of development, war, then more development, and more war. (｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ

From street brawls and gang wars, it will gradually transition to interstellar combat, campaigns, and full-scale wars. ┗|｀O′|┛ Ao~~~

Conflicts will also escalate step by step from the streets to factions, planets, star systems, and civilization itself. ヽ(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ

I know this is a fast-paced era, but I also know that many people, like me, look forward to a well-told story, and love a good story with a beginning, middle, and end, full of flesh and blood. (●'◡'●)

I can’t claim what I write is a good story, but I hope I’m striving in that direction. (*^_^*)

Different stories serve different people. (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

And I serve you, who love science fiction. Grateful. o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

Bosses, please feel free to read and support me. Please don’t save the book, I’m bowing. (^^ゞ

Love you all. (✿◡‿◡)

—

At dinner, the family sat around the dining table.

The hotel-delivered meal was exquisite in color, aroma, and taste, evoking a sense of nostalgia for Jiang Feng.

It wasn't the food he missed, but the feeling, the overall atmosphere.

In this moment, he was no longer the cold-eyed hunter observing death; he was simply Jiang Feng, a man surrounded by his family.

He patiently listened as Lin Xiaoxue recounted the details of the robot assembly line, occasionally interjecting with a few professional questions, which only made Lin Xiaoxue explain with even more excitement.

He also listened attentively as Lin Xiaomeng described those incredible alien creatures. Although the names of the creatures made his head spin a bit, seeing Lin Xiaomeng’s glowing eyes, he remained focused.

Occasionally, Jiang Feng would ask, “What do they eat?” which would prompt another passionate outpouring from Lin Xiaomeng.

Lin Xiaoyu watched them, a gentle and content smile gracing her lips.

What she wanted, what she fought with all her might for, was to protect this haven.

After the meal, Lin Xiaoxue and Lin Xiaomeng, unable to wait, changed into their sportswear and ran hand-in-hand to the hotel gym.

The suite grew quiet. Jiang Feng walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the vast, deep canyon city outside.

Lin Xiaoyu walked over and gently wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her cheek against his broad back.

“Tomorrow,” Jiang Feng began, his voice deepening, “I have to go back to Earth.”

The arms around his waist tightened instantly. Lin Xiaoyu looked up, watching Jiang Feng’s eyes in the reflection of the glass.

“Then I’ll buy a ticket and come with you,” she said calmly.

“Not this time,” Jiang Feng turned and hugged her, as if embracing a large teddy bear.

“Things here on the Moon are just getting started. There’s still a lot to do in the future; we need to truly establish ourselves. I need a stable rear, a place that belongs to us.”

Jiang Feng looked directly into her clear eyes: “We can’t live in a hotel forever, right? You stay here and find a suitable place. It doesn’t have to be too big, but it needs to be safe, private, and conveniently located...”

“Rent it out as our home on the Moon, and also as a long-term base for our future activities in outer space.”

“This task, I can only trust to you.”

Lin Xiaoyu looked into his deep eyes, and the small hint of reluctance in her heart slowly dissolved.

She understood what he meant. Earth was the headquarters, the foundation, but the Moon was the bridgehead, crucial for the future.

Jiang Feng needed her here, to lay the first cornerstone for their shared future.

“Only a few days at most,” Jiang Feng added. “As soon as I finish things on Earth, I’ll come right back.”

Hearing Jiang Feng’s promise, the last trace of hesitation in Lin Xiaoyu’s eyes vanished. She nodded obediently, burying her face back in his embrace, her voice muffled, full of complete trust.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you to come back. I already have an idea for a place; it’ll be great.”

“Ah? Where?” Jiang Feng’s jaw almost dropped.

“When I went to see someone today, I happened to go to Sector Six. Near ‘Silver Sun Avenue,’ there’s a very beautiful property called ‘Tiberius Tower.’ It’s close to everything.”

“Although the rent is a bit expensive, it would be very suitable for hosting partners and such in the future.”

Lin Xiaoyu mused, then added, “I’ll go check it out again tomorrow and send you the specific information.”

Jiang Feng shook his head: “If you think it’s suitable, just rent it. When I go back this time, a large sum of money will be deposited soon. Considering the average rental price of about 100,000 in Tycho Dome, I don’t think it matters.”

“Okay, then,” Lin Xiaoyu said faintly, “I’ll handle it.”

Jiang Feng felt her obedience and reliance, and a small, mischievous smile suddenly played on his lips.

“To the terrace, for some activity?” He leaned into her ear, and with his breath, her cheeks flushed crimson.

Lin Xiaoyu, of course, understood his look. Blushing, she playfully punched his chest, but her feet moved involuntarily.

The infinity pool on the terrace was like a giant gem embedded in the darkness.

The water temperature was constantly maintained at a comfortable 28 degrees Celsius. A gentle breeze carried the faint hum of the distant city, which only accentuated the tranquility of the place.

Jiang Feng and Lin Xiaoyu immersed themselves in the cool water, chasing each other and swimming several laps.

It was strange, Lin Xiaoyu never thought she was a good swimmer. When Lin Zhenguo took her to the beach as a child, she was always the one who sank, even with a life jacket, she was still afraid of deep water, afraid of suffocating.

But whether it was the Moon’s low gravity or simply growing up, she always felt that when she submerged herself, she no longer had the same feeling as when she was a child.

She held her breath for a long time, and while Jiang Feng surfaced, she secretly tickled his waist.

Jiang Feng “flew into a rage,” plunging into the water like a charging bull, and chased after her relentlessly.

The two frolicked in the water like two dolphins, and before they knew it, over ten minutes had passed without them surfacing.

When Lin Xiaoyu finally remembered to surface, as soon as she did, Jiang Feng emerged from underwater, embracing her waist in a surprise attack, which made her shriek with laughter that echoed crisply into the night.

“Stop it!”

Lin Xiaoyu laughed and pushed him, but her body unconsciously leaned closer.

The gentle waves rippled, isolating them from all the worldly disturbances.

The bell-like laughter soon turned into the sound of rain on plantain leaves, growing more and more intense... Earth, Sector 03, Public Security Bureau headquarters building.

Cold, dark glass, unadorned concrete exterior walls—even in the midday sun, it exuded a chilling, deadly aura that seemed to freeze one’s heartbeat.

In an interrogation room with no markings, only cold white light, the atmosphere was oppressive, like a condensed storm.

Xiao Qiang’s bulky frame almost broke the cheap chair, and red marks from handcuffs still lingered on his wrists.

Su Wen sat to his left, as quiet as a soulless porcelain doll. She wore the gray jumpsuit provided by the Public Security Bureau.

The overly large size, while accommodating her upper body, made her slender legs look as if draped in a sheet.

Her face was pale, almost translucent, her lips devoid of color, and her long eyelashes were cast down, showing no sign of life.

Only when the air conditioning blew would a fleeting, eerie, non-human violet flash briefly across her vacant eyes.

Like a spark from a short-circuited wire, it vanished in an instant, so quickly that one might mistake it for an illusion.

But Xiao Qiang knew it wasn’t an illusion. Each time the violet light flashed, his heart sank a little further.

Across the table, Jon sat upright, his dark gray suit perfectly fitted, his white shirt spotless, and his tie meticulously knotted.

Time had not etched deep lines on his face, especially around his eyes and mouth; he looked almost like a youth.

Xiao Qiang looked into his eyes and took a deep breath.

He was all too familiar with Jon’s tactics. As one of the three heads of the Earth Alliance Intelligence Bureau’s Black Ops team, Jon was also Xiao Qiang’s best “partner,” having fought side-by-side with him in the shadows, experiencing life and death together.

The moment Jon shifted his butt, Xiao Qiang knew whether he was going to take a solid dump or have diarrhea.

‘Typical silent interrogation. This son of a bitch, does he still consider me a brother?’ Xiao Qiang grumbled inwardly, but he knew very well that he absolutely couldn’t speak first now; whoever spoke first would be at a disadvantage.

“...So, this is how you repay your ‘old partners’?” Jon finally spoke.

His voice wasn’t loud, even calm, but every word was perfectly clear, much like a newscaster.

“You voluntarily requested retirement, and I approved it. You wanted to live a normal life? Fine, I understand. I even helped you erase some unnecessary loose ends, and what’s the result?” Jon sighed slightly, his gaze piercing Xiao Qiang.

“Following this freak, running to the Moon, turning everything upside down… and digging up all the dirty, unspeakable secrets of the big corporations.” Jon leaned forward, a cold sneer on his face.

“Xiaoqiang, do you think those guys at the top of the food chain will be grateful and give you medals just because you exposed the ‘truth’?” Jon slammed his hand down on the table with a sudden, fierce motion.

“Bang,” a loud crash.

“No. They’ll only feel utterly humiliated, like being stripped naked in public! This kind of humiliation needs to be washed away with blood. How much did they offer for your bounty? Nine million! Nine million, big brother!”

“Mercenaries, assassins, and even spies from other alien empires, who wouldn’t want to earn some extra cash?”

“If ‘Lunar Shipping’ hadn’t been unable to fully extend its reach to Earth, you would have died long ago!”

His voice suddenly rose, carrying a hint of suppression: “The reason you can sit here now, instead of being at the bottom of the sea, isn’t because you’re lucky, and it’s certainly not because you’re good fighters!”

“It’s because of me!” He pointed to his face: “It’s this old face of mine, plus the Intelligence Bureau’s name, that pressured Director Fobler, saving you from being branded ‘terrorists’ and thrown into a maximum-security prison.”

Xiaoqiang couldn’t listen anymore; he suddenly looked up, veins throbbing on his forehead, his remaining patience completely exhausted.

He roughly interrupted Jon’s scolding: “Enough! Jon!”

“Save that bullshit for your newly recruited rookies. Where’s my stuff?!”

His fist slammed heavily on the table, making an equally loud “bang” sound.

“The exoskeleton! The robot! The Robot Dog! Where are they?!”

Jon frowned at his roar, but the sharpness in his eyes didn’t diminish in the slightest.

He leaned back in his chair, hands clasped on the table, resuming his posture of being in control of everything.

Xiaoqiang’s heart sank: ‘Damn it, I’m at a disadvantage!’

“In the evidence room, heh…” Jon let out an inscrutable sneer: “To extract the image data from them, the Public Security Bureau’s top IT experts and the best Engineers from the Engineering Department took turns.”

Xiaoqiang’s heart tightened, his eyes reddened, and his breathing grew heavier.

“Guess what?” Jon spread his hands. “They couldn’t even break the most basic data interface.”

He carefully observed Xiaoqiang’s micro-expressions and sneered: “Not to mention the tough firewall, those arrogant idiots in the Engineering Department, relying on protective measures, tried to forcibly dismantle one of the robots…”

A strange fanaticism flashed in Jon’s eyes. He took a deep breath, not keeping Xiaoqiang in suspense, and continued.

“The result was the activation of a self-destruct program, powerful and precise enough. The fragments from the directional blast almost turned the entire analysis room, along with the three experts inside, into a hornet’s nest.”

“Now, no one dares to touch the remaining robots.”

“If I hadn’t suppressed it, Fobler even wanted to send these robots to the scrapyard for direct destruction, and even film a documentary about it as evidence that you two are ‘terrorists’.”

Xiaoqiang’s heart gave a sudden lurch. Dismantling, self-destructing… he could almost imagine the scene. A surge of uncontrollable anger and worry instantly rushed to his head.

He suddenly stood up, the chair legs scraping an ear-splitting scream across the smooth floor: “Idiots!”

Jon ignored his roar, leaning forward again, his gaze fixed on Xiaoqiang with intense curiosity.

“Xiaoqiang, tell me, how exactly did you get this equipment?”

“At first glance, this equipment seems ordinary, but in reality, not only is it unavailable on the market, but even the ‘synthetics’ in our Terran Union Intelligence Bureau’s inventory, purchased from other factions, or the first-generation ‘synthetic humans’ developed in our lab…”

“None of them are this bizarre!”

Xiaoqiang suddenly fell silent. He knew that silence wouldn’t guarantee secrecy. But no matter what, he didn’t want Jiang Feng’s information to be willingly spoken from his mouth to others.

‘Jiang Feng is a brother, and so are those robots,’ he thought firmly.

Jon continued to speak to himself: “I checked, but there’s no trace of you meeting anyone in the surveillance footage.”

“You know, I could easily use a ‘brainwave reader’ to extract the answers from your head, but I don’t want to do that. We’re good brothers, there’s no need to make things this way.”

Xiaoqiang shook his head and said frankly: “Then, you’re destined not to get the information you want.”

His peripheral vision involuntarily swept towards Su Wen at his side.

Su Wen still sat quietly, as if everything had nothing to do with her. However, the purple light in her eyes flickered more frequently, like uneasy lightning in the sky before a storm.

Her fingertips trembled slightly in her sleeve, and her breathing became unusually shallow.

Jon looked over, his brows furrowing: “Is this freak about to act up? I remember back then, when we went to abduct people, a brother named Amin had his head blown off by one of these freaks.”

“These freaks, at five or six years old, are like they’re on drugs, goddamn it.” Jon made no attempt to hide his disgust.

“If the Chief Scientist didn’t need them for experiments, we should really crush all these cockroaches, not leave a single one.”

“Do you still remember Amin?” Jon pouted: “Or are your thoughts only filled with the dead Dr. Su Li, and this big-breasted girl being monitored and researched outside?”

Xiaoqiang lowered his head. He was silent for a long time before whispering: “I remember Amin, we served together.”

“Yes, good brothers, bunkmates.” Jon smiled.

“Then why didn’t you shoot?” He provoked him indifferently.

“That was a child, Jon.” Xiaoqiang looked up at him: “A child who had just turned six!”

“What about a child? Firstly, we had orders.” Jon sneered: “Secondly, these… beings with ‘psionic potential’ are not human at all! Biologically, they are not one of us!”

“Screw you, Jon!” Xiaoqiang said definitively.

“They are all humans. Only those grotesque, man-eating alien monsters are not our compatriots.”

Xiaoqiang said definitively: “If I had known that joining the Black Ops team meant I would participate in such things, I would never have joined from the start, goddammit!”

“But you worked for sixteen years, from when they were six until they were twenty-two.”

Jon spread his hands: “How do you… explain that?”

“I was protecting them.” Xiaoqiang pursed his lips, his face icy cold.

“Is that so?” Jon smiled faintly: “Then, what did you do when the Chief Scientist electrocuted this big-breasted girl?”

“And what did you do when they ordered you to lead the team, along with Dr. Su Li, into the trap?”

Xiaoqiang lowered his head, not saying a word, his thick fingers clenched together, as if he had lost his voice.

“Xiaoqiang.” Jon leaned closer, sighing sadly: “You know, Dr. Su Li’s body was transported back to the Science Department. They removed her brain and created the first-generation ‘synthetic human personality matrix’…”

Xiaoqiang suddenly looked up. He erupted without warning, his hands gripping Jon’s neck tightly, tackling him to the ground.

Jon’s head slammed hard on the ground, making a metallic clanging sound, and the concrete floor instantly cracked.

Xiaoqiang squeezed his neck tightly, but Jon showed no signs of difficulty breathing.

He just smiled indifferently, lying on the ground unmoved.

“Xiaoqiang.” Jon said faintly: “Do you want to know what happened to Dr. Su Li’s brain later?”

Xiaoqiang’s grip instantly loosened, and his distorted facial expression suddenly froze.

“Also, this freak’s condition is very unstable. She has already missed the window for taking ‘psionic inhibitors’.”

“If she doesn’t get medical treatment, she will be dragged into the Shroud.”

Jon’s gaze shifted to Su Wen. He sneered: “I still remember that this freak used to be electrocuted to the point of incontinence… Who would have thought she could last this long.”

Xiaoqiang’s hands completely let go. He rolled over and stood up, growling: “Give her the medicine.”

“I’ll ask again, who gave you the robots!” Jon stood up, brushing his hair.

Concrete debris flaked from his hair, bringing with it a few fragments of synthetic skin, revealing the metal skull underneath.

Xiaoqiang closed his eyes. He gritted his teeth, a fierce internal struggle raging within him.

Jiang Feng’s name came to his lips several times, but when he saw Su Wen, a scene flashed before his eyes.

Su Wen looked at Jiang Feng with adoration, smiling for herself for the first time.

That blush on her face was perhaps a shyness she had never dared to imagine.

Xiaoqiang took a deep breath, letting out a roar from his chest.

“Jon, you can go screw yourself.”