Above the Blood Moon

Jockley subconsciously touched the bomb collar around his neck.

If Huang Shuangyan really ran away...

He forced himself to calm down and turned to look at Big Yellow.

"Can you trace this collar in reverse?"

Big Yellow's optical sensor flashed.

"Theoretically, it is possible. The timing chip in the collar is activated through neural connections, and the activation signal will leave a trace."

"But I said last time that I don't have enough memory. This level of reverse tracing requires a lot of computing power, and you won't let me upgrade the memory..."

"I'll take care of it for you later, I'll take care of it for you later, getting to work is the priority now."

Dahuang was silent for two seconds, then the optical sensor turned towards the collar.

"...Okay, but I need time."

"how long?"

"Five minutes, if there are no interruptions."

Jockley nodded and stepped aside. Big Yellow extended his mechanical finger, and a data cable as thin as a hair popped out from the fingertip, precisely piercing the interface hole on the side of the collar.

A few faint blue lights flowed along the data cable, and Big Yellow's processor began to run at high speed, emitting a deep hum.

While waiting, Jockley didn't sit idle. He activated his nervous system, retrieved Huang Shuangyan's contact number, and dialed it.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The long wait continued, but no one answered.

Jockley's heart sank, and he switched to message mode.

"Huang Shuangyan, this is Qiao Keli. I've raised enough money. I came to the store today but couldn't find you. If you see this message, please call me back or tell me where you are, and I'll send the money over."

Sent, but no read receipt.

He leaned against the wall, staring at Big Yellow. The golden optical sensor on its head flickered on and off, and the data cable trembled slightly, a sign that its computing power was fully utilized.

Jockley could even see faint white smoke rising from the heat dissipation vents on both sides of Big Yellow's head.

"How is it?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Don't rush me..." Big Yellow's voice crackled with static. "The signal is very weak. She's moving, no, she moved before. Her trajectory keeps breaking and then resuming. Damn it, how far has this woman gone..."

Time ticked by, and footsteps echoed from the end of the street. Several drunken scavengers walked by, their arms around each other, casting wary glances at Jockley and Big Yellow.

However, when he saw Jockley's hand on the handle of the gun at his waist, the man wisely looked away and quickly left.

Two more minutes passed.

Suddenly, with a click, the data cable snapped back, and the optical sensor began flashing wildly, as if it couldn't breathe.

"Found it. The last stable signal appeared in the Jinghu Wharf area. I've sent you the exact coordinates from the neural network; the margin of error is 500 meters."

Jockley immediately accessed the map module in his nervous system.

This is a public map of the Forgotten City. The accuracy is average, but it's sufficient. He spent 0.1 Covenant Credits to unlock the detailed layer of the Mirror Lake Wharf area and then entered the coordinates.

Zooming in on the map reveals that the coordinates fall within a gray area, marked with...

Seventh Warehouse Area (Private)

"Warehouse?" Jockley frowned.

"And it's a very large warehouse area."

"Never mind, I have to find her today, no matter what. Next time, I will never let anyone control my life!"

Jockley climbed onto Big Yellow's back.

"Let's sneak in!"

The nights in Mirror Lake Wharf District and Ruins Town are two different worlds.

The streets here are wide and clean, paved with synthetic materials that make almost no sound when you step on them, and the streetlights emit a soft, cool white light that makes the glass curtain wall buildings on both sides sparkle.

The hovercar glided silently along the aerial track, occasionally passing by pedestrians in smart company uniforms, their wrist interfaces flashing with golden light that indicated high credit ratings.

However, the seventh storage area is not in these glamorous areas.

It is located on the edge of the dock area, near the cargo star port. A large area of ​​low warehouses and factories are densely packed together like gray building blocks, with various company logos and numbers painted on the exterior walls.

Some warehouses had loading and unloading machinery parked at their entrances, while others were completely dark and looked abandoned.

Jockley and Big Yellow hid in the shadows of an alley. He closed his eyes and activated his superpowers.

As the area between his brows burned, his vision expanded, and heat sources within a hundred-meter radius appeared in his consciousness: the patrol drones on the warehouse roof, the steam leak point in the underground pipes, the interstellar airship engine in the distant port, and several other unusual heat sources.

The special heat source is humanoid, but its body temperature distribution is strange, with the temperature of its limbs being much higher than that of its torso.

This indicates that their entire bodies were modified with high-powered prosthetics, and that they moved extremely fast and with coordinated movements, as if they had received professional training.

More importantly, they were scattered in several key locations in the warehouse area, forming a loose encirclement.

"There are at least six people searching for something."

The rhubarb's optical sensor was set to thermal imaging mode.

"Judging from their formation, they don't seem to be warehouse security guards. Security guards wouldn't be so spread out, nor would they deliberately avoid blind spots in the surveillance."

Jockley nodded, his eyes fixed on the movement of the heat sources, his mind racing, and finally he came to a conclusion.

"They're chasing someone, and they don't dare make too much noise. Look, they're not even using guns."

In my supernatural perception, the weapons in the hands of the pursuers showed a special thermal imaging outline, suggesting they were melee weapons, such as energy blades.

Big Yellow was silent for a second.

"Then the person we're looking for..."

"They're right in the center of the encirclement." Jockley opened his eyes and pointed deep into the warehouse area. "Let's go, before they close in."

Let's take a look at Miss Huang's current disheveled state. Huang Shuangyan swears she has never run so fast in her life.

She was hiding behind a shelf piled with metal boxes, her back against the cold steel plate, her chest heaving violently.

Sweat soaked through her filthy Taoist robe, the fabric clinging to her skin, making her feel cold and itchy.

But she dared not move, nor could she move.

Just a moment ago, she heard a faint metallic scraping sound coming from the warehouse next door, which was as clear as an alarm in the deathly silence.

They're coming after us again.

Huang Shuangyan gritted her teeth and reached for the tool bag at her waist. The bag contained the handmade handicrafts she had accumulated over the years, which were prized for their unexpectedness, but they were almost all used up now.

She pulled out the last smoke grenade, held it in her hand, closed her eyes, and let the experiences of the past few days flash through her mind.

It all started with that scavenger.

Three days ago, a dirty-looking man with a vacant look came to her shop. He poured out a bunch of parts and a charred combat chip from his tattered backpack. They were all junk; they wouldn't be worth much even if they were dismantled and sold as scrap metal.

Huang Shuangyan originally wanted to send him away, but the man then took out a small bottle from his pocket.

The small bottle contained a thick blue liquid that glowed eerily under the light.

There were no labels on the bottle, only a thin crack, but the blue fluid did not leak at all, which was quite amazing.

"This together"

Huang Shuangyan picked up the bottle and looked at it against the light. The liquid was flowing slowly inside the bottle, as if it were alive. She had never seen anything like it before, but her intuition told her that this was not simple.

"Where did it come from?" she asked.

"I found it." The scavenger's eyes darted around. "It was in the ruins. A jar broke, and the contents spilled out."

"What ruins?"

"Are you going to buy that ruin that Yadea is now in charge of? If not, I'll find someone else."

Huang Shuangyan stared at him for a few seconds, and finally decided to accept it.

"Three Covenant Credits, all of them."

The scavenger was stunned for a moment, then overjoyed.

"Sold! Sold!"

He took the money and ran off, saying he was going to have a good drink.

Huang Shuangyan thought she had made a profit. Just based on the strange texture of that blue liquid, she could sell it to researchers at companies who liked novelty for at least ten Star Alliance coins.

But the next morning, on her way to open the shop, she saw the scavenger's body.

The body lay in the garbage heap of the alley, its neck broken, its eyes wide open, and the fear of its dying moments still lingering on its face.

Even more bizarrely, all the blood in his body had been drained, and his skin was as pale as paper, with only two tiny needle marks on his neck.

Huang Shuangyan knew she was in big trouble. She knew what the pinhole was for; it was a device for reading memories, something only people from truly large companies would have.

So she closed the shop, welded the doors and windows shut, and took the bottle of blue liquid and the pile of broken prosthetics to hide in the Mirror Lake Wharf area. She originally wanted to sneak into the company area, where security was strict and strangers couldn't get in, so maybe she could hide there for a while.

But as she approached the entrance to the company area, she sensed that someone was watching her, and there was more than one person.

Their eyes were cold, like predators sizing up their prey. Huang Shuangyan almost instinctively turned and ran, plunging headlong into the warehouse area.

Then came a chase that lasted for several hours.

The pursuers, like ghosts, always kept a distance that was neither too close nor too far.

They didn't fire or shout, but instead blocked her escape route in a way she couldn't understand, forcing her to run deeper into the warehouse area, like a cat playing with a mouse.

And she was that mouse.

Huang Shuangyan bit her lip until it bled, the taste of blood filling her mouth. She opened her eyes, activated her nervous system, and tried to send a distress signal.

"Signal interruption, please check your network connection."

A red notification popped up, confirming that since the other party dared to make a move in the Jinghu Wharf area, they couldn't have left such a loophole; the signal in this area had been blocked.

Despair welled up inside her; it seemed she was really going to die here.

For three Covenant coins, for a foolish deal, he died in this cold warehouse, his body thrown into a waste disposal plant to become raw material for the next batch of synthetic food...

No, Huang Shuangyan gritted her teeth. She couldn't die here. She still had so much money to earn, enough to save up for a ship ticket back to the original human camp, and so much more...

Huang Shuangyan gripped the smoke grenade tightly.

Even if she dies, she'll take someone down with her.

She took a deep breath, preparing to pull the safety pin.

"despair."

In the shadows on the top shelf, a small flame suddenly lit up. Huang Shuangyan froze, then slowly raised her head.

The flame flickered and then moved downwards. Someone jumped off the shelf and landed silently. A mechanical hand emerged from the shadows, its fingertips holding the cluster of flame forward.

Another human hand emerged from the shadows, holding a cigarette and lighting it over the flame.

The red glow of the cigarette butt lit up in the darkness, then a puff of smoke was slowly exhaled, and amidst the swirling smoke, Jockley emerged from the shadows.

He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a half-smile on his face, his trench coat swaying gently in the warehouse breeze, and the exoskeleton frame on his back gleaming with a faint blue light.

Da Huang stood beside him, the light from the optical sensor belt standing out conspicuously in the darkness. Huang Shuangyan looked at the two people who had suddenly appeared and almost burst into tears.

Jockley exhaled a puff of smoke, which slowly rose in the dim light and then dissipated. He looked at Huang Shuangyan and a smile curved his lips.

"Long time no see, Aunt Huang! How come you've gotten so sloppy in just a few days?"