Chapter 366: Information

It was just as dark on the other side of the door, and the interior was also tilted.

Eventually, the Dwarf led Zhang Wenda and the others into a tilted, classroom-sized room.

The walls were lined with all sorts of bookcases and shelves, all filled with books. It gave Zhang Wenda the strange feeling that he had stepped into someone’s Prefrontal Strait.

An old man with salt-and-pepper hair sat at one of the tables, rapidly transcribing something with a feather pen.

From the looks of his red-tinted surveillance, there were quite a few people standing in the rooms on either side. They were likely the shop’s security.

The Dwarf brought over a nearby ladder, climbed up, and whispered something in the old man’s ear. The old man then looked toward Zhang Wenda’s group and extended a gaunt right hand, the crevices of his nails caked with grime.

“We’ve agreed to the trade. Please give me the Material Pearl.”

“How does this trade work? Where’s the intel I asked for?” Zhang Wenda asked, surprised.

The old man smiled faintly and tapped a finger against his head. “It’s all in here. You pay, I deliver.”

“How do I know the information you give me is accurate?”

“We never sell fake goods. Besides, this is Forest City. If we did, the Big Circle would have kicked us out long ago. Trust is everything in Forest City.”

Zhang Wenda nodded in satisfaction at his words. He glanced at Hu Maomao and urged her telepathically, ‘Quick, quick! Now’s our chance! Just take the intel from his brain for free!’

‘Are you kidding me? This pearl is obviously rare. There’s no way I’m trading it.’

‘Hu Maomao and I can both explore memories. Having to pay for intel would be an insult to our abilities.’

Hu Maomao was, in fact, already on it. At some point, she had taken off the tinfoil hat from her head.

To give Hu Maomao cover, Zhang Wenda started stalling. “You’d better think it all through carefully. Organize your thoughts so you don’t get anything wrong.”

“I have a photographic memory. I won’t make a mistake.”

“Can you only give it to me verbally? Is there a written version?”

As Zhang Wenda continued to ramble, time ticked by. The old man, though unsure what they were up to, clearly sensed something was amiss.

“Sirs, do you want this intel or not? This isn’t a bar. I’m not here to make small talk.” The old man’s brow furrowed, his tone growing impatient.

“The customer is always right, you get me? I can’t even ask a few questions about what I’m buying?”

Just then, Zhang Wenda heard Hu Maomao’s voice in his head.

“Wenda, something’s not right. This place doesn’t just sell intel—it collects it, too. They’ve already logged our descriptions.”

“And they’re already assessing us. If they decide we’re a juicy target, they’ll sell our information to robbery crews.”

“Fuck.” Zhang Wenda’s anger flared. ‘This shithole really attracts the best and brightest, huh.’

A sharp scythe grew swiftly from his hand. Zhang Wenda glared at the old man, gritting his teeth. “You really think we’re an easy mark, huh? Fine. I’m done trying to get it for free! I’m just gonna fucking take it!”

Seeing things go south, the dozen or so red figures in the adjacent rooms started to rush out. But in the next second, Zhang Wenda ripped the red energy from their bodies, and they all collapsed limply to the floor, too weak to move.

Against Zhang Wenda’s overwhelming power, they were nothing.

The old man’s face was a mask of terror. He reached out a trembling hand, trying to speak, but Zhang Wenda clamped a hand over his mouth and slammed him down onto the table.

Then, he brandished a blue scythe, nicking himself with it before doing the same to the old man.

With a powerful wave of his hand, Zhang Wenda commanded, “Go! Empty out this bastard’s Prefrontal Strait!”

The next instant, the Little Black Cats and the clowns swarmed into the man’s Inner World and began hauling away his memories.

‘Now this was more like it. Since he had the power, why bother with all the bullshit? Brute force was so much better. It saved a lot of time.’

As volumes of memories were stuffed into his brain, all sorts of the old man’s recollections flooded Zhang Wenda’s mind—even one of him peeking at girls bathing as a child.

“Don’t just grab everything! Use your heads! Can’t you at least look at the memories before you take them!”

Just then, a blue rabbit hopped from one psychic fissure to another. “I’ll go.”

Once the blue rabbit was in place, the useless memories quickly vanished from Zhang Wenda’s mind, replaced by a stream of precise, useful information it ferried over.

As the memories from the old man’s mind surfaced, the fog obscuring the world after the cataclysm finally began to part.

First off, the information was similar to what Wang Shaojie had told them, but it was far clearer and more accurate.

This wasn’t secondhand rumor and gossip; it was confirmed, cross-referenced intelligence.

Four months wasn’t a short time, but it wasn’t long, either. Several highly habitable zones had already been discovered, and people were steadily migrating toward them.

A total of 96 such zones had been discovered. Their environments and the methods of accessing them varied, but most had their own unique dangers.

Furthermore, besides the Swamp—a region confirmed to have at least 250,000 people—the intel from the old man’s mind revealed three other zones of a similar scale.

There was Threshold 41, Threshold 23, and Threshold 59.

While these three rare zones had their own share of problems, they were relatively safe, and had thus become major human settlements.

With large populations come various organizations, and this new world was no exception. The group controlling Threshold 41 was also a remnant of the Big Circle, while the other two were run by organizations with different ideologies. But there was no sign of any Third Line organization.

But even the populations of these places didn’t exceed five million. When added together, the numbers just didn’t add up.

Clearly, the world map in the old man’s mind represented only a small corner of the world that was shattered in 1999.

The world’s population had clearly been partitioned into separate “bubbles,” each one undiscovered by the others.

The vast amount of information continued to expand and organize itself in his mind. He would need to go through it all carefully.

But before he could sort through it all, Zhang Wenda noticed something was off.

‘Wait, what about the Lizard People? Why isn’t there any mention of their organization?’ The more he reviewed the memories, the more something felt wrong.

‘If the entire world is fractured into isolated zones, shouldn’t the Lizard People be focused on finding their own kind? Why would they have time to send out mercenaries to lay traps for the Third Line?’

As Zhang Wenda mulled over the memories in his mind, he suddenly saw Blue appear before him.

“What is it?” Zhang Wenda asked, looking at him.

“There’s a piece of information you need to see for yourself.” Blue handed him a translucent memory fragment.

When Zhang Wenda reached out and gently touched it, a new stream of information entered his mind. His expression slowly grew grim.

Hu Maomao, who had been receiving the information from Zhang Wenda’s mind in real-time, couldn’t help but cry out after seeing it.

“What?! They’re holding our people prisoner here?!”