The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 545 Yonghe Story
"Number 787, what's your name?"

"Qi Meng."

"Qi Meng, that's a special name. 787, on behalf of the Imperial Cleaning Department, thank you for accepting our final interview today. In fact, I prefer to call you by your number."

Qi Meng didn't say anything.

The bald man sitting opposite snapped his fingers.

A palm-sized projection unfolded between the two of them, and the long and boring prelude of the cavalry march sounded all around them. As usual, the glorious battle records of the various empire legions would be played next.

When Qi Meng closed his eyes, the projection was still jumping in front of his retina, lingering.

The scene of the imperial army conquering all directions was like a fly on the ruins of the lower space, buzzing in my ears.

The scene before our eyes came to an abrupt end when the Qi army captured Jakarta and annexed Southeast Asia in the second year of Emperor Wu's reign.

The retina returned to normal.

The bald man had no expression on his face and nodded routinely.

"Very good, thank you for watching. Usually, in order to allow future Imperial historians to better understand all the details of what is happening today, we—the Cleaning Department—usually ask prisoners like you to review your criminal history first. Due to time constraints, we can directly present it in the form of video playback. During this period, your portrait rights and privacy rights may be violated... 787, do you accept this form of interrogation?"

Qi Meng exerted all his strength to push forward his handcuffed left hand and raised his middle finger towards the judge:

"Fuck you!"

The bald man was not angered by the gesture and his tone became calmer.

"Clones have no memories or emotions. From what I understand, you have a 24-hour cycle, and your experiences are the same every cycle... So I'm curious, where does your anger come from?"

Qi Meng slowly lowered the raised middle finger of his left hand and replaced it with his right hand.

"Fuck you!"

"Since you're unwilling to admit your crimes, let's start from June 787th, the th year of Yonghe. All surveillance footage proves the crimes you and the underground rebels committed against civilized society. , please remember, this is not an interrogation, nor a trial. We only have the version of the truth we've seen, and what we've seen will be seen by others in the future. It's a shame the rebels have partially destroyed some of the truth, but this doesn't affect your conviction."

The bald man snapped his fingers again.

The image in front of the retina switches to fifteen days ago.

The sound of dripping rain rang in my ears.

~~~
June 2063, the th year of Yonghe ( AD).

Nandu City, Handong Province, Great Qi Empire.

A gray drizzle floated in the sky, the colorful neon lights dyed the city into bright colors, and the towering steel forest spread from the bottom of the city to the sky.

Clouds of mist drifted among the city buildings, like giant seaweed growing from the bottom of the sea.

The Kunpeng 2 spacecraft glides between buildings.

In Ward 1803 of the Nandu Fourth Hospital, a medical record with scribbled handwriting hung on the corner of the bed. It read:

Name: Qi Meng

Sex: Male;

Race: Old-era humans (non-cyborg humans)

Born: December 6, the 11th year of Yonghe reign;

Age: 26 years old;
Height: 182cm;

Weight: 77KG;

Nationality: Qi;

Marital status: Single;
Occupation: Game programmer (responsible for fixing bugs in the game "Late Ming Dynasty Hegemony");
Workplace: Manfei Computer Technology Company (dismissed)

Address: Room 1804, Building , Phase , Longguang Garden, Nandu City
Drug allergy history: alcohol
Date of consultation: May 23, the 36th year of Yonghe.

Department of Neurology

Main symptom: Complete retrograde amnesia

Medical History: Fifty-six unknown injuries on the left ribs and chest
······
Handling suggestions:

Six months ago, while returning home from get off work, the patient was struck on the head by a bouquet of roses (weighing approximately 29 kg) that fell from a 1-story building, resulting in a brain injury and a coma. His girlfriend, who had cared for him for a week, disappeared. After treatment at a local surgical hospital, the patient was transferred to our hospital for further treatment. The previous attending physician diagnosed him with a temporal disturbance caused by the impact—a complete misdiagnosis!—considering his behavioral characteristics (often raising his left hand to press against the brim of his hat, imitating a shooting gesture), this was a significant mistake.

……

The drizzle hit the window and neon lights flickered outside.

Qi Meng stared at the colorful world outside the window in silence.

A doctor in a white coat and gold-rimmed glasses pushed the door open and walked in.

Instinctively, the patient took a step back and curled up in the corner of the ward. According to experience, the electric shock treatment would soon begin again.

However, unexpectedly, the doctor stepped forward, grasped the patient's hands, and shook hands with them in an exaggerated manner, just like the scene on TV where Emperor Xiaozong visited the United Kingdom.

"Congratulations! Mr. Qi, you've recovered. I have to say, this is a miracle, a miracle of electroshock therapy!"

Director Yang burst into thunderous cheers. After he finished speaking, he stood aside respectfully, looking towards the door of the ward.

The sound of high heels could be heard in the corridor outside the door. After a while, a woman with a charming face and a graceful figure stood at the door. Behind her were two burly men wearing baseball caps pulled down very low.

The woman glanced at the doctor nonchalantly. Director Yang and the female nurse felt ashamed and immediately lowered their heads.

"I took the person away."

"Okay, I've already completed the discharge procedures for you."

Qi Meng was shocked. Who was this woman who could make the ferocious Director Yang so respectful?

The next second, the seductive scent of perfume filled the entire ward, making people dizzy.

Qi Meng couldn't help but take a sneak peek.

The hair was in big golden waves, and the neckline of the big red silk skirt was very low, revealing the towering outline.

Qi Meng seemed to have seen the woman somewhere before. He tried hard to recall and suddenly felt a splitting headache.

She walked into the ward as if no one was around, walked straight up to Qi Meng, and whispered in his ear:

"Come on, husband, let's go home."

Qi Meng stared at the woman blankly for a long time, and suddenly a happy smile appeared on his face. While no one around him was paying attention, the time traveler secretly wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.

The gray sky, like a layer of dusty plastic wrap, was blurry, and a cold, damp mist enveloped the entire city. Behind the colorful neon signs, massive buildings rose from the ground, their upper floors fading into the mist, separating the upper and lower worlds.

Even from the soaring Kunpeng 2, it is difficult to see the scene on the top floor of the building.

In the 2062th year of Yonghe in the Great Qi Dynasty (1690 AD), the magnificent empire created by Emperor Wu of Qi (1745-), which spanned the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and ruled over million people, finally began to show signs of decline after three hundred years of development and prosperity.

Ten years ago, a limited nuclear war broke out between the Great Qi Empire and the Kingdom of Britain (Note 1), resulting in radiation infection and casualties among millions of soldiers and civilians.

With the death of more and more wounded soldiers and radiation patients, the marketization of mechanical prostheses and gene editing technology has once again been pushed to the forefront by medical capital.

In the words of Manfei Technology CEO Man Yuan:

"When medical ethics and the dignity of life seriously conflict, allowing citizens to live well is the only reason for our technological breakthroughs!"

Five years ago, there was a farce in which a veteran who was desperate due to nuclear radiation broke into the Imperial Senate with a vector jet. After being arrested, the former veteran of the Imperial Guard insisted that he was not guilty and that he did this only to promote medical progress so that more wounded soldiers could receive the treatment they deserved.

……

Under the influence of surging public opinion, the Imperial Senate had to make concessions, and multinational capital and medical giants began to influence top-level decision-making.

In October of the 36th year of Yonghe, Manfei Technology announced to the world:
Their long-term research into the bio-modification of the immune system project has been approved by the Imperial Senate. This project overcomes the challenges of immune system rejection, genetic information decryption and compilation, variability, and religious opinion inherent in mechanical prostheses. Once launched, it will benefit the 300 million disabled citizens of the Great Qi Empire (actual demand is far greater).

However, on the eve of the project's launch, an accident occurred.

~~~~~
The Kunpeng 2 spacecraft passed through the waist of the building and glided at a low speed. When the spacecraft passed by a huge three-dimensional holographic projection advertisement, Qi Meng stared at the projection model floating in the air in a trance.

What he saw before him was even more magical than anything he had experienced in his previous life.

The enchanting beauty in hollow Hanfu penetrates the clouds, her jade hands wearing sandalwood bracelets wave in the air, her red lips open and close like flames, and her eyes looking down at the earth are extremely seductive.

Are you alone, sir? I can accompany you through the long night... Manfei Technology will feast your eyes.

"You really don't remember?"

The woman glanced at the real-time passenger screen on the control console and repeated the question. Her emotions were hidden behind her smart sunglasses.

Qi Meng's attention was drawn back to the narrow and cramped flight cabin, which was filled with the same provocative perfume smell he had smelled in the ward.

Qi Meng subconsciously touched his nose. At this moment, the enchanting beauty who invited him to spend the night with her was replaced by a docile and lovely British shorthair golden shaded pet cat, and the advertising line changed to:
Master, please take me home. Manfei Technology is committed to caring for every life.

Less than half an hour after being discharged from the hospital, the amnesia patient's memory was still intermittent. Even this intermittent memory was limited to the dream before waking up, the dream about imperial ambitions.

Is this really just a dream? Am I Qi Meng or the emperor guarding the lonely city?
Touching the arrow-shaped scar that suddenly appeared on his ribs, Qi Meng fell into deep thought.

"I can't remember clearly. You look a lot like the person in my dream. Just now in the ward, you spoke like that, calling me... Who am I? Where am I?"

Although he knows nothing about his past, fortunately, he has not lost his basic language skills and his intelligence level is normal.

However, the powerful aura of this woman in front of him still made Qi Meng feel inexplicably depressed. This depression was just like when he first saw the bad weather and the bizarre city outside the window.

The woman's fingers danced on the console interface. After entering a series of flight commands, Qi Meng felt his whole body shaking slightly. The aircraft's engine spewed out a long light blue tail flame, and Kunpeng 2 climbed rapidly.

Qi Meng subconsciously pressed down the brim of his safety helmet.

"Those words were based on your memory vocabulary, designed to make you relax. Data shows there's an 89.99% chance of awakening your memory, but it seems like they weren't successful."

The aircraft entered the autopilot mode. The woman looked back at Qi Meng and shrugged. Even through her sunglasses, one could feel the awkwardness of her smile.

"So, Director Yang didn't cure you. I'll record this in my report when I get back. This crappy hospital should have been acquired long ago!"

Qi Meng didn't understand what the woman was saying. At this time, the colorful neon signs outside disappeared, and the street scene of tall buildings was replaced by dense low-rise houses.

Kunpeng 2 passed over the ground at high speed, and the light beam at its tail swept across a dilapidated house. A tall and thin girl stood in the ruins and looked up at the sky.

Everything seems familiar.

"Didn't Director Yang tell you your name?"

"No, this grandson gives me electric shocks every day and asks me elementary school multiplication tables and the name of the capital city of Qi State over and over again."

Qi Meng couldn't help but swear. He was still frightened and his body was shaking involuntarily.

“It’s simple and crude, but it does work.”

The woman snorted, as if she was oblivious to the pain the patient had endured for more than half a month. She pointed her finger into the air, and a projection rose above the console. The interface was densely covered with Chinese characters, and a slightly childish photo in the upper left corner looked particularly abrupt.

Qi Meng knew at a glance that the person in the photo was himself. He used to be quite handsome.

"Qi Meng, male, 25 years old, from Junzhou, Jiangbei Province, graduated from Imperial Jiangbei University with a degree in computer science, and formerly worked as an R&D engineer for the Wanming Zhengba game software at the interactive entertainment group of Manfei Technology Company..."

"A game of dominance in the late Ming Dynasty?"

Qi Meng didn't know if it was due to psychological effects, but he felt that the woman's voice began to become a little irritable, and she read the script faster and faster. He sat in his seat motionless, not daring to speak.

At this time, the two aircraft that had been following behind suddenly accelerated forward, surrounded Kunpeng 2 from the left and right, and trapped it in the center like a prisoner.

"On December 4th, the 36th year of Yonghe, at 2:16 AM, the suspect invaded the server of the Manfei Technology Medical Care Group by sending forged routing information to construct a false path between the source and target hosts. The group's biological immune system transformation project was forced to be suspended. While evading security, the suspect fell from a building. According to Article 7, Section 32 of the Company Law of the Constitution of the United Kingdom of Great Qi and New Tang, the suspect..."

The woman's voice suddenly became cold and sharp, and her eyes were fixed on Qi Meng who was sitting next to her.

"The suspect must compensate Manfei Technology for all losses and pay for his hospitalization and surgery within fifteen working days, totaling 138,766,000 Imperial Currencies. Based on his monthly income of 35,000 Imperial Currencies, he would have to work for 4,672 years. Considering the suspect's inability to repay, he is being arrested according to...."

Qi Meng looked at the astronomical figures projected on the screen and estimated that even if he started paying back the debt from the pre-Qin era until the empire's destruction, he would never be able to pay it back. He regained some of his memory, suddenly stood up from his chair, and shouted:
"The company system crash has nothing to do with me! Let me out! I want to go home!"

He was so excited that his head hit the ceiling of the aircraft cabin. His left hand subconsciously reached for his waist, as if there was a sharp weapon hanging there.

"Shut up!"

The sweet woman in the driver's seat became hideous, with a shocking crack on her left cheek, revealing the silver metal and wiring underneath. Above her jaw, various mechanical components were tightly intertwined, and together with the coral red lipstick on her lips, they formed a cold and deadly deterrent.

"Go home? You have no home! Because of your criminal actions, the company was forced to postpone the launch of its biologically modified immune system project, causing heavy losses to major shareholders! Your property and all your savings have been frozen. You are bankrupt! You must pay the price for your actions!"

The red light on the central control platform flashed, sending out an alarm signal symbolizing danger. The hot low-cut dress on the mechanical girl had long disappeared, replaced by the gray security uniform of Manxun Company that Qi Meng was familiar with.

"You monsters, die!"

The fist smashed hard against the seal logo embroidered on the uniform, but not only did the punch fail to hit the mechanical girl's neck, but it was instead tightly grasped by the slender mechanical hand.

"It hurts! It hurts! Let go!"

Qi Meng screamed like a pig being slaughtered, his wrist was dislocated, and his body went limp.

A wingman's call came from the central control platform. A burly man in a baseball cap flew over to provide reinforcements, hovering at a distance of five or six meters. One of them took off his baseball cap and looked at Qi Meng with contempt.

Qi Meng raised his middle finger at him and kept cursing at the mechanical girl sitting in front of him.

The driver, however, acted as if nothing had happened, automatically changed into a sexy miniskirt, turned back to look at Qi Meng, and said sarcastically:

"So violent! According to the information I have, a tech geek like you would never hit anyone."

"I can also kill people! I'll tear your head off later!"

Qi Meng cursed and, under the watchful eyes of the mechanical girl, twisted his dislocated left hand with force. With a click, the tech geek almost fainted from the pain.

"Do you know why they want to restore your memory? They want you to die in pain."

"I won't die, it's you who will die! You're a bunch of profit-seeking scum!"

The alarm in the cabin stopped, and the flashing red light turned green. The mechanical girl smiled slightly and said in a sweet voice:
"You're tough and unyielding, which is great. I hope you can continue to be like that when you get to Robi Prison!"

The aircraft was still flying slowly, and a gray-black building appeared in front of it. A fence made of steel mesh, cylinders and knife nets was wrapped around the building like a vine. Someone was walking on a towering watchtower in the middle.

Qi Meng realized that he would soon lose his personal freedom and looked a little panicked.

"I don't want to go to jail! You perverts..."

The charming mechanic interrupted Qi Meng in a soft voice.

"Shut up! Last year, there were too many unnatural deaths in Handong Province, and the company didn't secure a quota. The business group has no business dealings with the hospital where you live, and the cost of your death is too high. However, now, the company's hospice business group has started cooperation with Luobi Prison, and you can die legally..."

"Wait! I'm willing to do biological transformation for the company for free!"

When Mechanical Ji heard this, she was slightly stunned and leaned her head next to Qi Meng.

"I still have muscle memory. I had a lot of special experiences there. I know Bajiquan and Japanese Ninjutsu... Customers will pay a high price for them."

"Really? That's very interesting. Last month, a client specifically requested a custom-made Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei set meal."

The beautiful woman in a short skirt came close to him and began to touch him all over, exploring Qi Meng's cheek all the way down.

The picture is erotic.

For a moment, Qi Meng felt that the half-human, half-mechanical monster in front of him was Yang Qing'er.

"Qing'er?"

"Ah? Sir, what's the matter?"

The mechanical girl responded reflexively, her charming eyes revealing a long-lost warmth, and the intelligent central system crashed for a second.

"Qing'er, Jin Yuji, where are you?"

Qi Meng swung his right arm, exerting all his strength, and knocked the mechanical girl away with a Baji Ding, and smashed his fist into the brake interface on the command platform regardless of everything.

Danger! Danger! You are below the safe altitude!

Danger! Danger! Crash in three seconds...

Red lights flashed and sirens blared.

Kunpeng 2, which suddenly lost power, began to fall rapidly like a dazzling meteor.

The charming mechanical girl was attacked, lost her balance, and fell rapidly, hitting the ceiling.

"What did you learn in Eastworld? You turned into a barbarian and tried to kill me. I guess I can exercise my right of self-defense against you!"

"Eastern World? You made the game physical?"

"It was Lao Guo from the business department's idea. This way we can attract more players and make the financial reports look better..."

"Were you also responsible for those strange phenomena falling from the sky?"

The mechanical girl did not answer again. She had transformed into a four-legged spider, with her legs twisted into a terrifying shape. The sexy short skirt was torn into pieces by her limbs, revealing the dense wiring underneath. The suction cups like octopus tentacles tightly clung to the cabin, looking down at Qi Meng.

"Alright, I was a good emperor, but you guys blew me to death just because I disagreed with you. You killed tens of thousands of people. I'm going to tear your head off today!"

The mechanical girl's slender hands turned into two sharp Japanese swords, flashing with cold light, and slashed towards Qi Meng. The blades scratched across his cheek and pierced into the seat, cutting off the connection line, splashing sparks, crackling and exploding, and thick smoke rose.

Qi Meng pressed the emergency ejection button, and the mechanical device at the bottom of the cabin opened automatically. Qi Meng felt extremely dizzy, and his body flipped up and down until the parachute slowly opened.

~~~~~~
There was a loud explosion, and the flying propeller fragments brushed his scalp and flew towards the ruins behind him.

"so close."

He took a deep breath, untied the parachute rope, stretched his body, and found that he was actually unharmed.

Looking around, I saw that the pile of rubble not far behind me was filled with kitchen utensils.

"The happiness of rich people is so boring and simple,"

I remember my father often saying this.

These rubbish were thrown down by people on the top floor.

Only they are qualified to cook.

Programmers like Qi Meng usually can only rely on the instant noodles distributed by the company (Note 2).

In the southern capital of the empire, a personal kitchen is a luxury that ordinary people cannot enjoy.

A hundred meters away, half of the aircraft that Yonghe had launched in the past seventeen years was buried in ruins. The nose of the aircraft was burning fiercely, emitting huge amounts of black smoke, like a monster puffing out clouds of smoke.

An unsettling sound of metal rubbing could be heard from the cabin. Qi Meng quickened his pace, sifting through the garbage thrown by the people on the top floor, searching for the weapons he needed.

"I, I want to exercise my right to self-defense. The board of directors cannot tolerate two mistakes..."

The sound was intermittent, and soon half a mechanical arm emerged from the burnt window frame.

Qi Meng picked up a frying pan from the ruins and glanced down to see the words written in British and Chinese characters on the handle of the pan:

Dear lady, please don't hit your husband with it.

Qi Meng held the frying pan in his left hand and a heavy, exaggerated bone-chopping knife in his right hand. Like a celebrity artist participating in a cooking competition in a projected advertisement, he quickly ran towards the kitchen filled with black smoke.

The mechanical girl was stuck in the deformed flight cabin, revealing only her upper body made of titanium alloy, and tried to warn the once timid Manxun employee:

"You've damaged the company's private property and must pay compensation accordingly. You already owe..."

"Shut up! I never hit a woman, you guys forced me to do it! I wasn't killed by the explosion, and you still want me to die!"

Qi Meng swung the frying pan and smashed it hard against the robot's head, cursing rhythmically as he did so:

"I think, I woke up, I wasn't hit by a rose, I was hit by your gun..."

After being hit six times in a row, the robot's head did not deform.

"Is it this one?"

With the sound of loading, the titanium arm turned into a .5mm small-caliber rifle, with the barrel pointing at Qi Meng.

"Don't move! You're under arrest!"

Bad guys die because they talk too much.

"Repent, accept the company's punishment, and give an explanation to the division. Do you intend to continue down this path of crime? You can escape now, but you will also fall into the lower realms, where you will be hunted by a swarm of bees for the rest of your life, living amidst garbage and ruins..."

Qi Meng swung the bone-chopping knife and smashed it at the mechanical arm. After a burst of violent chopping, the mechanical girl finally stopped talking.

"Rori keeps on talking. He never stops talking."

Qi Meng once personally designed the swarm hunting system and knew how powerful it was. The empire purchased this type of micro combat drone specifically to hunt down rebels, and it was said to be very efficient.

The robot murmured to himself before dying:
"The first generation Rouji's function was mainly socializing and negotiating. Fighting was not her strong point..."

Qi Meng nodded and said softly:
"I know, so the company will send a more powerful character to kill me next time. Goodbye, little beauty."

The bone-chopping knife split open the robot's chest and pulled out a block of energy that was flashing green light from the densely packed circuits.

After the energy block was pulled out, the mechanical girl's twitching limbs finally died completely.

Qi Meng hid the energy block in the backpack he found out of the ruins.

Looking around, I see lonely smoke in the desert and the setting sun on the long river.

At the end of the ruins is the lower level space, which leads to the dungeon.

A sudden shrill alarm sounded overhead, and Qi Meng quickly hid in the ruins. Two wingman planes circled over the crashed plane, as if hesitating whether to land.

Qi Meng estimated that the thermal imager had scanned him, and there was no place to hide except for the garbage ruins around him.

"Damn it, I'm going to be blown up again,"

There was a rumbling sound of wheels behind him, and at the critical moment, a row of fully armed Greyhound scooters appeared in Qi Meng's sight.

A dozen motorcycle thieves came to the vicinity of Kunpeng 2 and used hydraulic cutters and some unfamiliar tools to cut the "private property" of Manfei Company into pieces.

The convoy discovered the threat from the sky and fired dense tracer bullets at the wingman. The wingman did not even dare to fight back and quickly took off and escaped.

Qi Meng stood up from the ruins and walked towards the group of uninvited guests.

"Give me a ride, hey! I'm going to the dungeon! Bro!"

He shouted twice, but no one paid any attention. He approached a man with a northern face and a black scarf. The man was busy cutting the central control platform of the aircraft with a laser knife, probably trying to take out the chip inside.

Seeing him concentrating on operating the laser knife, Qi Meng felt that this man must have been a sculptor in his previous life.

"Brother, I came to the lower space to look for my sister who has been lost for many years. There was a small problem with the aircraft. Can you give me a ride and send me back to the underground city? These things are all for you."

The sculptor glared at Qi Meng with a caring expression for a fool, signaling him to get out of here.

Before he could continue the conversation, the sculptor pulled out a shotgun and pointed it at Qi Meng's forehead.

I don't like having a gun pointed at my head.

"Strip him! He's got his projection glasses! Don't break them! They're worth a hundred Imperial coins!"

In front of more than a dozen 13mm caliber classical shotguns, Qi Meng acted harmless and allowed the other party to rob him of everything, leaving him with only a pair of boxer briefs.

"Brother, you've never stolen a chip, have you?"

"The console needs to be cut from the left, bypassing that line. The chip is an embedded structure..."

"You're a good kid, give his pants back to him."

After confirming that the sculptor had split the Kirin chip worth 500 imperial coins into two halves, Qi Meng smiled with satisfaction and left.

The motorcycle thieves came in a hurry like locusts and left carelessly like a swarm of locusts, leaving Qi Meng alone. Fortunately, the energy block was hidden in the ruins in advance and was not searched away.

~~~~~
"Cockroaches, cockroaches that eat dregs, you untouchables! Wait for me..."

The scavenger drove away in a car. Qi Meng pointed at the smoke rising in the distance and cursed.

He continued to wait in front of the hollowed-out aircraft, waiting for the right cockroach to appear.

It is necessary to enter the underground city. Everyone in Nandu knows that staying in the wilderness at night is extremely dangerous.

The sun is setting.

At the horizon, the upper space is ablaze with colorful neon lights, and the sexy beauty in the projected advertisement is inviting customers to take her home.

Comparing the wasteland and ruins before him, Qi Meng felt an inexplicable absurdity.

Qi Meng didn't think too much about it. In this world, he wanted to be a simple and happy person.

He continued to search for tools in the ruins with his upper body naked. Sweat flowed along his strong chest and abdominal muscles to the arrow wound under his ribs.

While looking for something, he recalled what happened today, and at a certain moment, he suspected that he was not himself.

"I can actually kill a robot and dare to confront Manfei Company. Am I crazy?"

It is estimated that Manfei Company’s aircraft is already on the way.

Qi Meng was in mixed mood.

Suddenly, the rumbling sound of wheels rang in his ears. Qi Meng hurriedly crawled into the dug hole, holding a bone-chopping knife in his left hand and a dagger in his right hand.

The speeding car flew over without even pressing the accelerator, appearing to be extremely cautious.

Qi Meng and others became impatient and stuck their heads out to look around.

Thankfully, there was only one cockroach this time.

A thin man wearing a cheap black microfiber suit drove an old car back and forth, like a cautious shark, refusing to land for a long time.

Qi Meng jumped out of the pit and shouted:
"Hey, brother, if you want to grab something, come down quickly. Don't waste time. Wait a minute, the swarm of bees will come."

The flying car was hovering in the air. The thin driver was stunned. After a while, he pointed the rusty gun barrel at Qi Meng.

"Who are you? How many of you are there... You are speeding. Stop speeding. Speeding will lead to death..."

The smart voice system of the classic car is as old as it is and is obviously no longer useful.

The originally serious and tense atmosphere of the confrontation turned funny.

Qi Meng raised his hands, revealing his bruised abdominal muscles, to indicate that he was unarmed and had no accomplices.

"Brother, I'm not afraid of you. Why are you so nervous? Stop wandering around. Do you have enough energy? Come down quickly. I have something good for you."

The man in black made sure that Qi Meng was the only one in the car before he turned off the engine. The car swayed and came to a stop like an old man. The flight cabin slowly opened and a head emerged.

The cheapest Desert Eagle pistol was pointed at Qi Meng, and Qi Meng suspected that there was no bullet in the chamber.

"It's too shabby. You're so skinny from starvation. You must be having a hard time."

Qi Meng strode forward, as if talking to a brother he had known for many years.

The other person stared at his throbbing abdominal muscles, his mouth moving slightly, and the next second, he pointed the collector's edition Desert Eagle at the half-naked man running.

"My clothes were taken away by scavengers. Fortunately, I am a craftsman and helped them get the Kirin chip. Otherwise,"

Qi Meng pointed to the pants he was wearing.

"Otherwise, the lower half of my body won't be saved either."

The man in black looked at him and still said nothing.

Qi Meng knew that he had met a mute, or perhaps the other party was more introverted and didn't like a good person like him who was talkative.

"I'm a good person, really. You're lucky to have met me today. By the way, are you disabled?"

The man in black lowered the muzzle of his gun slightly and pointed it at the man's abdominal muscles.

"Then I'll say it, and you'll nod if you agree?"

The man in black nodded with interest.

"I have energy blocks, enough to sustain you and your family until this winter. How about you give me a ride to the underground city and I'll give it to you?"

The man in black was about to nod when a shrill alarm suddenly sounded from the flying car behind him. When Qi Meng looked up, he saw more than ten aircraft appearing in the distant sky.

"Go! They're coming back. They're going to kill me, and you."

"Deal? Deal!"

Qi Meng shouted and jumped onto the car without waiting for the black-clad man's permission. His tall figure made the seat creak.

This Type 97 Greyhound Speedster is also the last product of the Biguankai Company. Shortly after the release of this model, Biguankai announced its bankruptcy and was then acquired by the Manfei Company... It is an antique from the last century, similar in design to a 19th-century nuclear-powered motorcycle.

During takeoff, the person sitting in the back will feel a strong push on their back. It got this name because of its fast speed and small size.

"The greyhound is really strong,"

Qi Meng almost fell down and hugged the rider's waist and back.

My fingers touched something soft under the coat.
"Are you human? Or a woman?"

The scavenger started the engine and looked back at Qi Meng with a fierce look that seemed to want to kill Qi Meng.

Bullets rained down near the Greyhound car. The female scavenger turned the power to maximum and pulled out the trailing bullet from the control interface.

The tail flame of the trailing bullet rose into the air, blooming into a brilliant smoke above the two people's heads.

Taking advantage of the smoke screen to cover, the greyhound nimbly shuttled between the ruins, dodging bullets and disappeared towards the distant horizon.

Qi Meng was bathed in the evening breeze of the desert, his tattered cloak rustling in the wind. He looked at the thin scavenger girl in front of him and said loudly:

"What's your name? My name is Qi Meng, the Qi of Qi State and the Meng of Mencius. My parents named me because they wanted me to be on par with saints..."

Perhaps infected by this familiar temperament, the scavenger girl laughed out loud, showing her white teeth:
"Saint? A saint with eight-pack abs? Call me Shi Yingning."

The old terrier made an unsettling squeak, and the speeding car cast a thin shadow on the wasteland.

"Yingning, this name sounds really nice, like an anti-inflammatory medicine."

"When I was a child, my grandfather told me a book of ghost stories. At that time, the Empire still had paper books. There were stories about fox spirits and rat spirits. I forgot what the book was called..."

Shi Yingning interrupted the chattering:
"In 'Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio', Yingning is a fox who loves to laugh."

"Oh," Qi Meng closed the car window, a bonfire was lit on the ground, and the Wasteland Gang began to come out to look for food.

I had heard of the Wasteland Gang when I was at Manfei Company. The Wasteland Gang specialized in robbing passers-by and aircraft in the suburbs.

Compared with the scavengers, the Wasteland Gang has no concept of law. They are well-equipped and powerful. Once they are targeted, it is difficult to escape from their clutches.

It is said that this group of people originally came from the empire's most elite central guard, and their leader was a loyal guard around the previous emperor.

After the North Sea War with Britain thirty years ago, palace coups occurred frequently and the guards who followed the late emperor were suppressed by the new forces. The guards were either executed or forced to flee. This group of people gathered deserters and wounded soldiers from the Guards, installed pirated prosthetics on them, and joined forces with some other desperate criminals to occupy the ruins in the suburbs and loot at will.

Two years ago, that is, in the 35th year of Wuding, the Senate finally sent troops to suppress the Huangcao Gang. The news broadcast at that time said that these hidden dangers had been completely eliminated.

"What happened in the past six months?"

"What did you say?"

Qi Meng simply explained to Shi Yingning his experience of being hit by a rose. Yingning was shocked and said:

"Are you from the floating island? Are you an islander?"

"Why? Don't I look like one?"

Qi Meng looked down at himself. No matter how he looked at himself, he didn't look like the floating islander that the scavengers looked up to.

Shi Yingning lifted her ponytail, which is a subconscious action of female animals to attract males.

The flying car wobbled as it flew over the wall and finally stopped at the entrance to the dungeon.

In front of a tall metal door, two guards holding vector jets looked at the various flying cars flying around with red faces like Guan Erye.

"Who is Guan Erye? I've never heard of him." Shi Yingning asked curiously.

"A tall woman who blushes when she sees strangers,"

"What a joke! A guard dog blushing isn't shyness."

Yingning leaned close to Qi Meng's ear and whispered, "They are cyborgs. They blush because they have that..."

It’s because of the wax, Qi Meng said in his heart, and he recalled the scene of watching Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy with his grandfather.

"Because of the human immune system's rejection reaction, the prosthesis and the original body are not compatible, and the white blood cells kill a large number of invading viruses,"

My thoughts returned to reality and I blurted out.

Even he, a low-level programmer who has nothing to do with the company, knows about the difficult problems that Manfei Company has not been able to solve for more than 30 years.

If you forcibly install or use pirated (all products other than Manfei are pirated) prostheses, the main body will develop a fever, and in severe cases, may go into shock and die.

"You know a lot,"

"Of course I graduated from Imperial Jianghai University. During my four years at university, I was ranked in the top ten in terms of book borrowing volume. When the professor who taught the course "Symbiosis of Driver Chips and Biological Brains" was performing surgery, I was the one who gave the lecture to the students..."

Shi Yingning clapped his hands and laughed:
"Okay, okay, that's amazing. Chip creatures, are they the zombies in the movies?"

Qi Meng was speechless.

As agreed, he gave the energy block from the mechanical girl to the smiling girl and said goodbye to her.

Shi Yingning waved to Qi Meng and started her old car. The nuclear-powered engine made an unsettling clicking sound, and the azure tail flame finally ignited.

The greyhound car slowly rose into the air and approached the laser surveillance camera. Qi Meng's mood became a little depressed.

Qi Meng knew that he had no way out, but once he stepped through this door, it would be harder than climbing to the sky to become a resident of the floating island.

Although the floating island is only the first layer of the upper space, they are still the superior ones and never allow cave dwellers to appear in their area.

Some hunchbacked cave dwellers returned empty-handed. These scavengers had lost their aircraft for various reasons and were not allowed to enter the dungeon without them.

The eliminated scavengers can only beg for a living, and perhaps they will not be seen tomorrow.

It was getting dark, and Qi Meng realized that he might have to spend the night outside and spend the long night with the Wasteland Gang.

Looking up at the night sky, the towering skyscrapers are home to the elders and senior officials of the empire, who are the ruling core of the empire.

Close to the highest center of power are slightly shorter buildings, which are where the powerful and wealthy live.

The lowest level is occupied by ordinary citizens (mainly workers and programmers), or what Shi Yingning calls the "floating island dwellers."

Further down is the underground city, and the people here are called cave dwellers.

The residents of the underground city originally lived above ground. Over a hundred years ago, the explosive growth of technology, accompanied by massive pollution and ecological destruction, transformed the once livable urban fringe into a desert and garbage dump. Bankrupt refugees gathered here, living among the ruins. Some, unable to endure the harsh living conditions, began to move underground.

The prototype of the underground city was a large number of bunkers built to prevent nuclear attacks from Britain.

The fortifications later became a haven for refugees and bankrupts.

The Senate once tried to wipe out these fugitives, killing them all like rats and cockroaches.

However, even the most advanced drones would lose their way and disappear after entering the underground city. When the war broke out, the empire had no choice but to compromise and acquiesce in the existence of cave dwellers.

Flying cars loaded with all kinds of supplies flew overhead, their engines humming mockingly.

Qi Meng planned to steal the car.

This thought flashed through his mind and then died out. The guard at the door obviously regarded him as a suspicious person - ever since the Wasteland Gang attacked the dungeon last year, everyone here looked like an enemy and everyone looked like a Wasteland Gang member.

The guard walked towards Qi Meng with a gun.

Qi Meng reached for his waist, but there was no goose-feather knife or Miao knife, only a small fruit knife for cutting fruit.

He had almost forgotten the memory of the emperor who disappeared after the eastern expedition to Japan.

However, the emperor's skills, such as Bajiquan, Wudang kick, Double-edged sword and Yang family spear, and various killing techniques are deeply engraved in muscle memory.

The hand holding the dagger trembled slightly.

"Get in the car and let's go."

An old greyhound car was parked steadily in front of him. Shi Yingning, who was sitting in the driver's seat, lifted his mask, revealing a cool expression underneath.

Note:
1. Supu: Contains a lot of protein, can quickly replenish the body's ability, and contains some amnesia agents, which helps improve employees' sleep,

2. Limited Nuclear War: In the 2013th year of the Yonghe reign (1117 AD), a nuclear conflict broke out between the Great Qi Empire and the British Kingdom and its vassal states along the Ural Mountains. This conflict resulted in 1238 million casualties among soldiers and civilians in the Tatar province of the Great Qi Empire and the British Kingdom's Eastern European territories. The war ended with a bitter victory for the Great Qi Empire and the British withdrawal from Eastern Europe. This was the most serious political and military conflict between the Eastern and Western Hemisphere empires since the Arctic War. The war led to the rise of monopoly capital and the resistance movement, and is generally considered the peak and turning point of the Great Qi Empire. — Annals of the Great Qi Empire, pages -

(End of this chapter)