Chapter 119: Running Away

Chapter 119: Chapter 119: Running Away

The robot was packing up its things when it turned to Xiang Yi and asked, "Just who the hell are you? The people from the Strategy Department all seemed pretty familiar with you."

"And I saw the junkyard boss too. What’s the deal between you two?"

"Uh... a bit of an accident." Xiang Yi didn’t really know what to say, so he deflected with a question of his own. "Speaking of which, what’s your history with the junkyard boss?"

"What do you think? I was short on materials, so I had Bingtian go ask around for me."

"That idiot rounded up a bunch of his boys and snuck in to steal stuff in the middle of the night. They got their asses kicked, got chased all the way back here, and tore apart one of my robots in the process."

Du Bingtian just stood there with a stupid grin on his face, not daring to say a word.

"I honestly can’t figure you out. You’ve only been here a few days and you’ve already got connections all over the place. And after everything that’s happened, you’re still running around hiding from people. Just what kind of trouble did you get yourself into?"

"Forget it, doesn’t matter if you don’t want to say."

"If I can’t afford to mess with them, I can at least afford to stay out of their way."

"Besides, the situation around here has gotten too messy for me to make sense of anymore. You’re on your own — good luck."

Xiang Yi wished he could rely on luck, but the situation on Anka Star had already pulled him into its current like a whirlpool. There was no getting out.

"That stuff you asked me to get — I’ll still track it down for you. I’ll reach out once I’ve settled somewhere new, but any new business is going to have to wait a while."

Xiang Yi respected the robot’s decision. It wasn’t like he could force it to stick around and keep doing business with him.

But with the robot gone, what was he supposed to do about his ammunition supply?

Master Chang’s equipment order included lathes and similar machinery, and Xiang Yi could technically use his own Spiritual Energy to handle production.

But there were only so many hours in the day. He’d need to find another way to fill the gap.

As for the vendors on the Dark Zone sites — those weren’t exactly trustworthy.

What a headache.

Xiang Yi let out a quiet sigh to himself. His thoughts drifted back to the prison, and the weight on his mind grew a little heavier.

"Actually, here." Xiang Yi held out a small case. "Almost forgot to give you this."

"This is..."

The robot took the case and flipped it open.

The brilliant gleam of High-Quality Blood Crystals caught the hardware store’s light, flooding every one of the robot’s Visual Sensors.

"Damn. There really are that many."

The robot reached into its storage compartment and pulled out a fresh card, handing it to Xiang Yi. "The two million we agreed on is in there. From now on, however many High-Quality Blood Crystals you’ve got, I’ll take them all."

"How many can you actually move?"

The robot waved a hand with the confidence of someone who had money to burn. "All of them! I can skip other deals, but not this one."

"I’ve got another twenty-four kilograms."

"How much?"

"Twenty-four kilograms."

The robot went silent. It stood there for a long moment without saying anything.

Xiang Yi started to wonder if it had crashed. He reached out to knock on its head, only for the robot to bat his hand away — and still say nothing.

Du Bingtian leaned in and whispered, low enough to be polite but not nearly low enough to escape Xiang Yi’s ears, "Boss... is that... too much for you?"

"Ahem..." The robot cleared its throat with obvious discomfort.

"Alright," Xiang Yi said, giving the robot an out. "What’s the most you can actually take?"

"Depends on the price..."

"Two thousand per gram is already a discount. It used to be a lot more than that."

"If you hadn’t said you could buy in bulk — and if I didn’t think you were bluffing about having this much — I’d have charged you full price."

The robot knew the price was genuinely good. Back when it first started buying High-Quality Blood Crystals from Xiang Yi, it had been paying three thousand per gram.

A drop of a third was nothing to scoff at.

Part of it wanted to push for more, but what it had just seen in that case put a lid on that idea.

After thinking it over, the robot said, "Twenty million worth, then. I think I can handle that."

That came out to ten kilograms of Blood Crystals.

With that sale, Xiang Yi would only have fourteen kilograms left to find buyers for.

"I’ll send you a deposit later. I’ll need a couple of days to get the funds together on my end — I’ll contact you when the money’s ready. Delivery in the city district works, right?... Actually, yeah, of course it does. Given your situation, I’d be surprised if it didn’t."

"Anyway, I’m definitely not coming back to this hardware store for a while. Some stuff I just couldn’t take with me — you’re welcome to use whatever equipment’s left here if you want. If not, pretend this place doesn’t exist."

"Later."

With that, the robot lifted the lockdown on the hardware store, slipped out through the back door, and was gone — quick and decisive as ever.

Xiang Yi moved to the window just in time to watch the robot and Du Bingtian climb into a car that had apparently been parked there the whole time, and in an instant they vanished down the street.

"Gone just like that."

Xiang Yi had no idea whether the robot would actually manage to get away clean.

Anyone who’d lasted this long in a place like this knew how to take care of themselves. It wasn’t his problem to worry about.

He figured the Abnormality Strategy Department would eventually trace things back to the robot anyway. Whether they’d actually catch it was another question entirely.

Actually, wait — now that he thought about it, the Abnormality Strategy Department dealt exclusively with Abnormalities, which meant they almost certainly had a demand for Abnormality Material.

All that Abnormality Material fought so hard to obtain — it’d be a waste to just hand it off to random buyers. The Department probably had affiliated research institutes too, for all he knew.

In that case, could he sell his Blood Crystals directly to the Abnormality Strategy Department?

Was that why Master Chang had gone to the Abnormality Strategy Department in the first place — to line up buyers for mass-produced Blood Crystals ahead of time?

Quite possibly. Either way, that was a problem for tomorrow.

Xiang Yi turned around and took stock of the hardware store’s layout.

To the right of the front entrance was the storeroom, and next to that was where the robot had done most of its work.

The surrounding space had once been packed wall to wall with equipment. Now only a handful of machines remained.

Since the robot had made it clear it didn’t care whether Xiang Yi looked after the place or not, it clearly had no intention of reclaiming it.

There was no deed or anything like that, but the store could work as a temporary base of operations. He’d figure out later whether it was worth keeping permanently.

Honestly, it wasn’t a bad option.

He’d overheard the Strategy Department personnel saying the surrounding area would be locked down for at least a month to deal with any lingering effects from the Abnormality.

As long as the Department wasn’t a problem, staying here might actually be safer than anywhere else.

And it wasn’t far from the junkyard either, which made it a convenient staging point for when he went after the mole in the Southwest City District.

Xiang Yi sealed up the hardware store on the robot’s behalf and headed out for the time being.

He took his hovercar out to the Southeast Suburbs and dragged Lu Qi down into the sewers.

Lu Qi was the first person Xiang Yi had ever extended this particular honor to.

"Alright. Your turn, finally."

Xiang Yi had his interrogation tools laid out and ready.

A Laser Rifle. A short blade for quickly severing body parts that had been assimilated by Blood Crystals. And a medical kit to round it all out.

Simple enough setup — but as for the results... let’s just say more than a few people had experienced them firsthand, and they worked just fine.

Lu Qi’s eyes carried a thin edge of contempt and disdain, as if Xiang Yi’s interrogation methods were beneath his concern.

Xiang Yi had seen that look plenty of times before. It didn’t faze him.

"The way you commanded your men earlier was professional. I’d guess you’ve got a military background."

"But you clearly haven’t kept up with any kind of military training in years. You’ve fallen far enough to end up running with gang muscle."

"And I’m a firm believer that willpower alone can’t hold out against physical pain. At least not for someone ordinary."

"So here’s how this goes. I ask, you answer."

Without another word — without even asking a single question first — Xiang Yi leveled the Laser Rifle at Lu Qi’s fingers and pulled the trigger.