56: Chapter 56 Birthday Special: Buy One Get One Free

At the time, he thought five hundred for one was quite expensive, but looking back now, five hundred wasn't even one-tenth the cost of renting an alien spacecraft; it was as cheap as getting it for free.

But cheap has its problems.

During that "debut" in the B-2 parking lot at Las Vegas City Hall, the leaking electric arcs from the Men in Black's hands and the malfunctioning, disobedient lights almost ruined his entire performance.

In the end, he had to spend an extra two thousand points to patch the plot holes and get the story back on track.

These low-end bionic androids were barely sufficient in front of a playboy like Link Warren.

After all, Link's mind had gone completely blank from fear at the time; even if the Men in Black had been holding electric fly swatters, he would have imagined them as alien arc weapons.

But Diana was different.

Diana had seen military-grade non-lethal weapons with her own eyes.

If she realized that the "arcs" of these two Men in Black were just due to electrical leakage, it wouldn't just be a matter of patching plot holes; it would be a matter of the entire script being exposed by her on the spot.

"System,"

Zhang Yi selected the four low-end android cards in the storage interface and selected the batch upgrade option.

"How much does it cost to upgrade all four to the high-end version?"

[Unit upgrade cost: 5,000 points/each.]

[For nano-bionic construction units originally purchased at 500 points/each, upgrading to the high-end version requires paying the price difference and reconstruction costs.]

[Total for four units: 20,000 points.]

[After upgrading, the bionic units will be identical to real carbon-based living organisms in all detectable dimensions, with no risk of electrical leakage, no material anomalies, and no flaws in behavioral patterns.]

Zhang Yi felt as if his chest had been struck by a blunt object.

Twenty thousand.

He had just spent five thousand renting the spacecraft; out of his eighty thousand, seventy-five thousand remained, and deducting another twenty thousand would leave him with fifty-five thousand.

This emotional value seemed to grow quickly, but it was spent even faster, like water flowing away.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the heartache, and prepared to click confirm. But just before his finger touched the confirm button, a thought suddenly popped into his head.

He withdrew his finger and adopted the tone of someone haggling with an elderly woman at a vegetable market.

Although the system wasn't a vegetable vendor, there was no harm in trying, and it didn't cost anything.

"System, twenty thousand to upgrade four... can you throw in one more? Maybe a buy-one-get-one-free deal?"

[The host currently does not possess any coupons or discount qualifications.]

[Buy-one-get-one-free promotions are limited to specific trigger conditions, such as: the host's birthday.]

[Detected that the host has not yet set a personal date of birth in the system profile. To activate potential discount qualifications, please complete your personal profile first.]

Zhang Yi was stunned when he saw this line of text.

Then, in less than half a second, the expression on his face completed a full transition from "stunned" to "I see" to "that's simple enough."

He replied almost instantly:

"Since you've said that, surely I know when my birthday is? It's today."

[...Please confirm: set the host's date of birth to June 10th?]

"Confirm."

The system was uncharacteristically silent for a moment.

That pause was a tiny bit longer than usual for any query feedback.

It was long enough for Zhang Yi to think the system might be re-evaluating, in some deeper logic circuit, whether this host was here to write scripts or to fleece the system.

But in the end, the system still popped up the result.

[Detected that June 10th is indeed the date of birth recorded in the host's profile.]

[Birthday discount triggered: Buy one get one free.]

[The host can receive one free high-end nano-bionic construction unit of the same specification in the current transaction.]

[Please select the usage for the gift item after confirming the upgrade.]

"Thanks for the cooperation." Zhang Yi's lips curled slightly, and he clicked the confirm button.

Twenty thousand emotional points disappeared from his balance.

Eighty thousand minus five thousand for renting the spacecraft, minus twenty thousand for the upgrade, leaving fifty-five thousand.

But there were now five high-end bionic construction units in his inventory: four upgraded ones and one free gift.

He began to craft the characters one by one.

First were the two Men in Black.

The image foundation was already there, so he didn't need to redo their faces after upgrading to the high-end version; it was mainly a matter of checking the configuration parameters.

He pulled up the data panel and scanned it.

Biological material simulation was at one hundred percent, no risk of electrical leakage, power output was forty percent higher than a human special forces soldier,

reaction speed was sixty percent higher, and the facial micro-expression system was the full version, so they wouldn't be expressionless like two walking refrigerators anymore, as the low-end versions had been.

He nodded in satisfaction, saved the parameters for the two Men in Black, and set them aside.

Then came the middle-aged woman.

Zhang Yi opened her editing interface and stared at that face for a few seconds.

This image was one he had casually created when he first transmigrated; the style leaned towards a "Federal Government female official"—grey suit, short hair, capable but inconspicuous.

If pushing the script towards Diana was the ultimate test for her to verify the authenticity, then the middle-aged woman didn't provide enough impact.

It wasn't enough to make Diana raise her guard to the maximum the moment she saw her.

So, Zhang Yi brought up the middle-aged woman's profile options and reset everything from gender and facial modeling to body parameters as a "new character," crafting a man in his late twenties.

Handsome features, well-defined contours, a straight but not overly prominent nose bridge, and beneath the brow ridges were a pair of eyes that were calm to the point of being cold.

It was the kind of coldness that comes from standing in high places for so long that one can't be bothered to explain anything to anyone anymore.

He was wearing a sharply tailored dark casual outfit, with no epaulets, no badges, and no markings of any kind.

But you would just feel that no matter which door this person walked through, the people behind it would stand up first, and only then remember to ask who he was.

Zhang Yi rested his chin on his hand, examined his work once, and then nodded with satisfaction.

He leaned back and gave his evaluation in an entirely immodest tone: "Not bad."

"Although in terms of looks it can barely touch one-tenth of my charm, in the field of bionic android modeling, it counts as qualified."

Next was the naming phase.

He stared at that face, and the first name that popped into his head was "Yanzu."

But he quickly dismissed it himself.

"Too pretentious, no."

The second one that popped out was "Li Feiyu,"

This one was even worse; giving such a name was too wicked.

Finally, his fingers typed two characters into the input field: Zhang Long.

Common, easy to remember, not pretentious, and not wicked.

The key was:

"Zhang Long, shares my surname, he'll be my designated spokesperson from now on."

He finished saving Zhang Long's parameters and then turned to the last one,

the bionic construction unit gifted by the system.

He didn't intend to innovate with this one; he just crafted a second Grey Alien according to the classic model.

On one side were Zhang Long and the two Men in Black; on the other were the two Grey Aliens flying the alien spacecraft—the faction distribution was complete.

Next were weapons.

Zhang Yi opened the store's weapon category, wanting to see what equipment could match Zhang Long and the two high-end Men in Black.

Last time in Las Vegas, when patching the plot holes, he had equipped the Men in Black with an MK-3 electric stunner and the middle-aged woman—now Zhang Long—with an LX-7 light control terminal.

But these two things were not enough in front of Diana Hopkins.

Diana was the behind-the-scenes manager of Northrop Grumman; she had grown up watching the world's most advanced military equipment, and the thrust curve charts of the F-119 turbofan engine were like elementary school textbooks to her.

Standing in front of her with two baton-level "alien weapons" wouldn't bluff her; instead, it would make her suspicious: Is this the level of your Deep State alien technology?

"Rent," he said, "just like the spacecraft, rent for one hour."

The rental price for alien weapons was much cheaper than the spacecraft.

These two items weren't heavy equipment themselves; they belonged to individual auxiliary equipment in the store's weapon category, with a buyout price of just over a hundred thousand points, and an hourly rental price of twenty-five hundred each—two items would be exactly five thousand.

Zhang Yi confirmed the parameters on the payment page, and the system automatically deducted five thousand from his balance.

[Ion suppression gloves — Hourly rental: 2,500 points.]

[Non-lethal restraint device equipped by alien law enforcement units. A micro-ion generator is built into the palm of the glove, capable of releasing directional ion pulse beams.]

[After the pulse beam hits the target, it can temporarily interfere with consciousness and autonomous motor nerve pathways, causing the target to enter a state of paralysis with blurred consciousness and limited movement for a short period.]

[Can be used unlimited times within the one-hour rental period.]

...

[Directional tractor gloves — Hourly rental: 2,500 points.]

[Precision control device equipped by alien engineering units. A micro-gravity field generator is built into the glove, capable of exerting directional vector force on target objects within a short distance, producing pulling or pushing effects.]

[Can be used unlimited times within the one-hour rental period.]

Zhang Yi looked at these two freshly minted weapons in his equipment bar, then looked at the five bionic androids that had already finished upgrading,

and then looked at the Round Shuttle-class scout ship in his storage space, which was counting down.

Then he let out a long sigh.

On the system interface, his emotional value balance was fixed at exactly fifty thousand points.

Coming in with eighty thousand, in less than half an hour, it had shrunk to fifty thousand.

Renting the spacecraft cost five thousand, upgrading the androids cost twenty thousand, renting the weapons cost five thousand, totaling thirty thousand.

If it were back when he first transmigrated, just sitting around looking at those high-end items in the system store that cost millions, he wouldn't even blink, because he couldn't afford them anyway.

But now that he had saved up to eighty thousand, every bit he spent was real money, and every bit felt like cutting a piece of flesh off his own body.

However, cutting or not, the job still had to be done.

He opened the deployment map.

In Arizona, Scottsdale, on the coordinate point of that private estate in the east, a red marker was quietly flashing.

He didn't hesitate for too long; he dragged the Round Shuttle-class scout ship directly out of his storage space and added the two Grey Aliens to the flight crew list.

Then, in less than three minutes, he configured the positioning, appearance timing, and individual action scripts for each android in the task editor.

Finally, he took one last look at the fifty-thousand emotional value figure, took a deep breath, and his finger clicked "Deploy."