Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The first tracksuits with a hoodie Jing Jiu owned had gone up in flames, and the one he wore that day turned into green smoke as well. Fortunately, Zong Lizi bought a new set of tracksuits in the black market besides the beef steaks many days ago to express her gratitude to him.
Jing Jiu gave a very nonchalant response to the gift. It was because he thought the clothes in the underground black market, according to his understanding, were the leftovers of the dead people on the upper level and that they were not clean at all.
Zong Lizi guessed what was on his mind by looking at the expression in his eyes. Jing Jiu brought the blue tracksuits with him only after she washed them with her own hands, irately.
His line of sight passed through the burning wild reeds and landed on the hotel on the other side of the lake.
Zong Lizi lived in this hotel.
Jing Jiu had thought about what had happened that day during his bathing in the lake.
The gist of the matter was: Why did the assassin want to kill him?
When he lived in the underground neighborhood, he didn’t attempt to conceal his whereabouts. He had gone to the streets with Zong Lizi and eaten the barbecue twice. If a big gaming company like the Twirling Rain Company wanted to, they would be able to find him for sure. If the inner circle of the Twirling Rain Company had an internal conflict, he and Zong Lizi would be involved even though they didn’t wish to. However, they shouldn’t have acted so aggressively and employed a special department of the military to deal with him. He went to the network security company today and stood on the street opposite of the Administrative Bureau; and he also went to the Fire-Passing Pagoda…Though the main preacher was a bit suspicious, he went into the pagoda on a wimp. The most likely suspect was the laboratory he saw when he opened his eyes the first time in this world. Maybe, the people at the lab had been pursuing and surveying him ever since he left the lab.
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The red permanent star had already traveled to the other side of the large canyon, but it didn’t descend behind the crust yet, illuminating the other side of Shou’er City in the distance.
Jing Jiu followed the crowd walking to the other side of the street, wearing the blue tracksuits with the hoodie covering his head.
He had come up in the early morning, but he had to go down again by dusk. It reminded him of the middle-aged workers who were under a great deal of societal pressure to support themselves and their families, which was often described in the novels of this world. As such, he didn’t wish to go back following the same route. Besides, he had only finished reading the seventeenth paper of the third theses collection…Hence, he decided to go through the squared building even though it was full of the gravitational field that he disliked very much.
As he walked into the gate of the Administrative Bureau, the bracelet on his wrist contacted the sensor automatically, giving off a faint “ding”. The policeman in light armor let him in with no expression on his face.
It was 1.4 kilometers from the gate of the Administrative Bureau to the direct transporter.
If an accelerating device or zhenqi was not used, it would take the humans more than ten minutes and over two thousand steps to arrive at the transporter.
Jing Jiu connected his awareness to the ubiquitous internet through the ring on his left hand during the short trip, and procured adequate traveling right from the private network of the Administrative Bureau. And he used the rest of time to read a half of a paper.
The bracelet uttered another faint “ding”; the staff let him in the cabin of the transporter politely.
It was a large room with thirteen adjustable soft chairs, provided with many fresh fruits and drinks and grape wines.
The so-called direct transporter was an elevator that could travel to the underground laboratory directly after passing through many levels from Shou’er City.
It would be a long trip, but the chairs and the service were much better than those on the magnetic floating trains.
It was because those who had the right to travel to the underground world through this transporter were either the officials of the government or the wealthy merchants, even the nobles.
Jing Jiu didn’t pay attention to the fruits and wines; he came to a corner and lay on a soft chair, facing the outside of the window with his eyes closed.
Later on, seven or eight more commuters entered the cabin. They all found their respective chairs, resting or watching the news after turning on the light screens. A loud voice announcing the news burst out from the receiver in a commuter’s inner ears. He was startled and hastened to turn down the volume before he turned to the other commuters in the cabin and nodded slightly to express his apology.
The transporter started to move. Everything was tranquil except for the faint buzzing noise outside the semitransparent windows. It didn’t take long before the descending speed of the transporter stabilized; and the air pressure of the venting system was adjusted to the optimal value. The commuters felt more accustomed to the environment; and they unfastened the seatbelts, took some foods and wine and started chitchatting in a low voice.
They all thought that the commuter wearing the blue tracksuits was sleeping; so none of them approached him.
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…
The transporter resumed descending after it stopped at each level for a brief moment.
By the time Jing Jiu finished reading another mathematics theses collection, the transporter had arrived at the laboratory. There were two commuters besides himself left in the cabin.
Jing Jiu got up from the chair and followed the two commuters heading toward the outside of the cabin. As he stepped on the metal floor, he felt a slight change to his body, which was the sensation of imbalance brought in by the man-made gravity. This laboratory was situated very close to the center of the planet, with a few important scientific projects located there.
As one of the twenty-five principal laboratories of the Federation of the Milky Way, it had a very high status both in the government and in the classification type.
There was even a saying: The Stargate Base existed for this laboratory.
Not long after they had walked on the metal pathway, they sensed a tremor up ahead, followed by an ear-splitting friction.
The two commuters in the front couldn’t help but complain after shooting a glance that way.
“Hasn’t the laser gun been repaired yet?”
“It’s said that it is the problem with the automatic weapon platform. As you know, it’s not so convenient to transport the materials to the underground by spaceships; and the resources are mostly used on the project of star chain. No matter how high a status this laboratory has, it’s still not as high as that place.”
“Nonsense. It has nothing to do with the material. It’s said that the automatic weapon platform has employed the achievements of the distant ancient civilization; but the Science Academy has never admitted it. This conjecture is confirmed when they try to repair it.”
“Stop talking about such a baseless matter; but I’m more curious about what had happened that day. If they were the monsters of the Sea of Dark Matter, it would be impossible for the news to be censored so completely.”
“Nobody knows. All they know is that the president has come. He has stayed in the lab for seven days, without meeting any director of the Base. It’s only that he is gone, and has visited the female priest, who is severely ill, before his departure.”
Jing Jiu had no idea who the president the two talked about was. After some thought, he believed that he must be the president of the Science Academy of the Federation of the Milky Way.
If so, he was nothing less than an important figure in the upper echelon of the Federation.
Such an important figure came all the way to the remote Stargate Base because of Jing Jiu, of course.
Walking on the metal pathway for one minute, they came to the first scanning point.
Jing Jiu had just procured a primary authoritative right for the lab; so he passed it after the two commuters.
Two formless waves swept over from the both ends of the metal pathway and scanned the bodies of the three commuters, and then faded.
After Jing Jiu ascertained that he hadn’t encountered any problem, he began to hack the central network of the lab through his ring. He had procured a higher authoritative right in a short time.
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The authoritative right was a significant thing in this world.
As long as one had a special or high enough authoritative right, they could go to anywhere they wanted to and do anything they wanted to.
For instance, with enough right, one could order a battleship at any time and go to the Sea of Dark Matter to see the empty scenery; one could go to the Main Planet to visit the female priest whom was respected by everybody; and one could also take off a shoe and knock the table with it at the general meeting of the Administrative Bureau.
Sometimes, one could even disregard the laws when they had enough authoritative rights. However, one had to make use of their authoritative right to lock the files on their crimes in the document department with an encoded lock, which would be unlocked only after one died.
There were many ways to procure the authoritative rights. The main way was to contribute to the human Federation of the Milky Way; the more one contributed, the higher authoritative right one obtained. The examples were: inventions in the military factory, years of service on the battleships, killing how many tentacles of the Mother’s Nest in a region close to the permanent star, and paying how much tax of information credit to the Federation.
It was true that the simplest way to procure the authoritative right was to purchase it with money.
Jing Jiu could transfer the information credits in the banks into his bracelet at any moment, which was tantamount to having an unimaginably large amount of wealth.
However, he didn’t like such an indirect way to procure the right, which was the same as how he disliked the way this world used the fairy energy. He preferred a direct way to deal with things, like killing with a swing of the sword and snatching the authoritative right directly.
The scanning became increasingly more thorough in the pathway, indicating the classification level grew higher and that he was nearing the center of the lab.
Ding!!!
An automatic door opened before him, exposing the scene inside the room.
There were a metal counter and a few micro generators of the gravitational field in the room. It was none other than the same room where he had woken up.
Jing Jiu came before the operating counter and found the computers here were disconnected from the outside world, thinking it was the reason why he failed to find related information on this place.
The ring on his finger gave off a faint glow. He found the files related to himself. After having read them twice, he remembered the digital indicators hidden in them.
Soon after, he connected to the military network through the private network of the lab and began to search for the traces of those files.
When he was in Shou’er City, he had hacked the network of the Science Academy through the interplanetary network and attempted to find out something; but the data were all highly encrypted. It would take him a long time to find the related information even though he had an amazing calculating ability; and it would be easy for someone to discover him. As such, it was much easier and safer for him to come to the lab, which was the original source, to search for it.
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A trace will be left behind after someone passes by.
This saying was often mentioned in stories, and it was indeed an old-style plot. However, it was an unshakable truth.
When the Green Bird flew by the sky in the Green Sky Mirror, the Master Mo could even see the residue of her figure in the sky, not to mention the others.
The laboratory of the Stargate had done many experiments on the subject brought back by the battleship fleet of the Starpoint, and written a few reports on the subject. Later, the reports, after they were encrypted many times, were sent to the higher authorities.
Jing Jiu had searched for the slightest traces in the interplanetary network and the network of the military; in the end, he found out that there were seven terminals or the data users that had read the reports.
He started hacking those terminals prudently; as such, he was doing it at a much slower pace.
The reports written by the lab of the Stargate on him had been sent to the military by the Science Academy. After that, no clue couldn’t be discovered. It was unclear whether the military didn’t come up with a conclusion or the reports merely turned into a bunch of senseless words on the paper.
Next, he inputted the data about the body of the assassin in overall and the type of the micro bullet in the computer and connected them to these terminals; but he didn’t find any clue, feeling surprised.
The most puzzling part was that both the lab of the Stargate and the government of the Federation of the Milky Way had no plan to find him, as if the case regarding him was closed after he had left the lab.
Who the heck wanted to kill me?
There was only one possibility left after he eliminated the lab, the gaming company, and the owner of the gaming parlor in the underground neighborhood.
Jing Jiu came before the window and looked at the outside through it.
The fake blue sky and white clouds outside the window couldn’t fool his eyes, of course.
His gaze was trained at the sky.
The lab was located in the deep end of the planet; the sky was merely a distant speck.
It was similar to looking up at the sky from the bottom of the well on Shangde Peak.
He wondered who the idiotic ascendant bent on killing him was?
