Chapter 56: Southwest City District

Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Southwest City District

The moment Xiang Yi noticed someone had apparently gone to report his whereabouts, he started keeping a careful eye on his surroundings.

But after a long while, all he picked up on was the weight of multiple gazes fixed on him. Nobody actually stepped out to confront him.

Before he knew it, he had drifted closer to the parts of the Southwest City District that had once seen some degree of urban planning.

The streets were noticeably wider here, and the buildings that lined them were arranged in orderly rows.

Still, those buildings had long since been absorbed into the district’s overall aesthetic — swallowed up by corrugated metal sheeting and all manner of junk piled around them.

The whole area still felt chaotic, carrying that same atmosphere of decay and dilapidation shot through with tension and conflict.

Anyone who lived in this part of the district almost certainly had more resources at their disposal than the people scraping by on the outskirts — which meant there was a good chance these were exactly the kind of people Xiang Yi was looking for.

Even so, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t even linger on the buildings for a second glance, just kept walking with his usual air of someone with nowhere in particular to be.

Then he spotted it — a short distance away, a dozen or so people had gathered around a wall plastered with several electronic screens arranged in an overlapping grid, each one cycling through advertisements.

The largest screen in the center was playing footage of a well-equipped group making their way through the wilderness outside the city walls. When they stumbled upon a seemingly safe stretch of land that looked fit for settlement, every face in the footage lit up with excitement and elation.

Then a bold line of text flashed onto the screen: OUTSIDE-CITY PIONEER CORPS — NOW RECRUITING!

So they’re recruiting scavenger crews.

Xiang Yi turned over what he’d read online earlier that day.

Anka Star had exactly one city, exactly one colony.

It had been founded fifteen years ago, and the walls had gone up five years after that.

Ever since then, the local government had never let up on its plans to push the perimeter outward.

There were always recruitment drives — people needed to go outside the walls to tag Abnormalities for later clearance, scout locations for landmark structures, and even establish permanent outposts beyond the city limits.

The intent to expand was obvious, and the results spoke for themselves.

Case in point: right next to the board advertising the pioneer corps was another one recruiting mechanics for a newly constructed mine outside the city.

There were already scattered structures dotting the land beyond the walls. Once they reached a critical density, new walls would follow.

Human territory would steadily eat into the space where Abnormalities roamed.

The catch was that the people doing that work had to face those Abnormalities head-on.

Xiang Yi was just about to walk over for a closer look at the pioneer corps listing.

Bang.

The central screen exploded, shattered by a rock that came flying out of nowhere.

The display flickered a few times, and the recruits’ broken smiles vanished for good.

The crowd scattered instantly, exposing a middle-aged man standing in the middle of it all, his face twisted with fury, shouting something at the top of his lungs.

Xiang Yi hadn’t even made out what he was yelling before a squad of guard robots came sprinting in from the direction of the Central City District, pinned the man to the ground, slapped restraints on his wrists, and hauled him off in the blink of an eye.

Probably lost someone to the pioneer corps and never got them back.

That was about as far as Xiang Yi could speculate.

Because the moment he’d spotted those guard robots, he’d already slipped into a side alley.

He had his coat and face wrap on, but if a guard robot got a good look at him, none of that would count for much.

Better to steer clear of them entirely, just to be safe.

Xiang Yi had barely been in the alley for two minutes when the ambient noise around him began to drop away.

The residents who had been cooking over open fires nearby seemed to have vanished all at once. Barely a sound remained.

He spun around on instinct — and found the alley behind him completely blocked off by five or six figures.

He’d been half-worried this whole outing would turn up nothing, but it looked like exactly what he’d been counting on was finally happening.

The whole reason he’d come to the Southwest City District was to find people connected to the local gray market.

Going out and actively hunting for them would never work — it would just tip people off and cause problems. But letting them come to him with their own agenda? That was a different story entirely.

"There we go."

Xiang Yi muttered to himself, then put on a good show of panic and broke into a quick run.

But more figures materialized from somewhere ahead, plugging the far end of the alley completely.

The buildings hemming him in on both sides were two or three stories of corrugated metal — no way to climb out even if he tried.

Xiang Yi hurriedly swung his backpack off his shoulders and clutched it to his chest. "Who are you people?"

That reaction was all it took. Every pair of eyes around him filled with greed.

Someone from the crowd called out, "Put the bag down. Then you can get lost."

"You’re robbing me?" Xiang Yi raised his terminal. "Aren’t you worried I’ll call the cops?"

"Go ahead. We can wait half an hour."

A burst of laughter rippled through the crowd, like they already had Xiang Yi right where they wanted him.

The one who seemed to be leading the group stepped forward. "Think of it as paying for a lesson."

"Leave your stuff and walk away. And don’t go wandering into places like this in the middle of the night — next time, you might not even know how you died."

"You’re the one in charge here?"

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled the machete from his belt, swung it in a single clean arc into a wooden plank propped up nearby, and split it in two.

"Stop wasting my time. Your call — the money, or your life?"

At that, the others raised their own weapons. One wrong answer from Xiang Yi and they’d be on him all at once.

Xiang Yi swept his gaze around the group. Every weapon he could see was a blade of some kind. No firearms. No heat weapons.

Good. That settled it.

Xiang Yi set the backpack on the ground and looked at the leader. "All right, I’ll take you at your word that you’re running this show."

"Smart. Play nice and this goes easy for everyone."

The leader assumed Xiang Yi had given up on any pointless resistance. He waved the machete, gesturing for Xiang Yi to step back.

Once Xiang Yi had backed up a few paces, the man scooped up the bag and wasted no time undoing the clasps, spreading it open to reveal the equipment inside.

The leader’s hands went still.

Whatever was in there looked seriously high-tech. Obviously not something ordinary. What was it doing out here?

Had this guy stolen it from somewhere and come here to sell it? Had he just landed himself a big score?

The leader let himself think the best of the situation.

Still, something felt off. He raised the machete and pointed it at Xiang Yi, who was slowly backing away — edging himself out of the Mind Pulse Generator’s effective range — and asked, "What is this thing?"

"This is—"

The words never made it out of Xiang Yi’s mouth. Something caught his eye: at the very back of the crowd that had him boxed in, one person’s expression had just changed.

It happened the instant the leader opened the bag and the equipment inside came into view.

The man’s face went through a flash of pure shock — and then, just as quickly, lit up with something like delighted disbelief.

Xiang Yi’s own expression hardened immediately, because as far as he could see, there was only one thing that could make someone’s face shift that dramatically in an instant.

That person recognized the device. And recognized the person carrying it.

The man’s hand moved fast — out came a battered, beat-up terminal from his pocket, angled toward Xiang Yi in what looked like a snapshot, and then he turned to leave.

But before he could go, he caught Xiang Yi’s stare — the kind that could strip flesh from bone.

He froze. Then shoved the terminal into his jacket and bolted.

One of the nearby thugs looked baffled, shouting after him, "Pingyu, what the hell are you running for?"

Pingyu didn’t dare answer. He tucked his head down and sprinted hard into the dark.

Xiang Yi’s expression went cold. He raised a finger and pointed at the fleeing figure in the distance.

"Bring him back. Alive."