Above the Blood Moon

Huang Shuangyan's head exploded with a buzzing sound.

In that instant, she couldn't understand why, why Jockley was there, how he found her, or even whether it was reality or a hallucination before her death.

She had only one thought in her mind: to grasp at this lifeline and hold on to it tightly.

"Let's get out of here first; they're nearby."

Jockley nodded and didn't say anything more. He stretched out his hand, and Da Huang cooperated by lowering his height so that Huang Shuangyan could reach Jockley's hand.

"Come up."

Huang Shuangyan practically climbed up, and Qiao Keli could feel her trembling.

"Big Yellow, go back the way you came." As he spoke, Jockley took the cigarette out of his mouth, stubbed it out, and put it in his trench coat pocket.

He got the cigarettes from Atel a few days ago. He doesn't actually smoke; he just lit one because he thought it would look cool. Da Huang was still teasing him about it on the neural network.

"Master, where did you learn this line from? (╯°□°）╯", but he ignored him. Now that he had finished his cigarette and his show-off act, it was time to get down to business.

The three then retreated along the path they had come from.

This passage was previously scanned by Dahuang. The ventilation duct system in the warehouse area had been in disrepair for many years, and several damaged sections had created natural, concealed paths.

Big Yellow led the way, with Qiao Keli in the middle and Huang Shuangyan bringing up the rear. The three of them crouched down as they made their way through the narrow metal pipe.

"Tell me," Jockley said without turning his head, his voice echoing slightly in the pipes, "What happened?"

Huang Shuangyan took a few breaths, forced herself to calm down, and began to explain the reason.

She speaks quickly but clearly; after all, she's in business, so her narrative skills are quite good.

When she mentioned the ruins that Yadi had recently taken over, Chokri paused and interrupted her.

"Wait, you just said the scavenger said this liquid came from somewhere?"

"The development area leased by Yadea Company," Huang Shuangyan repeated. "It's that area in the west of the city, which used to be... something like ruins?"

Jockley fell silent. Only the soft breathing of the three men and the creaking of Big Yellow's mechanical joints could be heard in the pipe. The red moonlight streaming through the vents illuminated the inner walls of the pipe in a dark red hue.

Huang Shuangyan waited for a long time without receiving a response, and began to panic.

She thought that Qiao Keli was scared. After all, this involved Yadea Technology Company, and any normal person would think twice. So she quickly moved forward and lowered her voice.

"Jockley, listen to me. If you help me get out of here this time, you won't have to pay back the money you owe me. Not only will you not have to pay it back, but I'll also give you 50 Star Alliance Coins. If you want it, I can give it to you as many times as I want."

A soft laugh came from ahead.

Jockley turned around and glanced at her in the dim light. That look reminded Huang Shuangyan of the same expression on his face when they first did business together, but he didn't stop walking.

"Aunt Huang," Qiao Keli said slowly, "you're quite narcissistic."

"What?"

"You think I risked being chased by those guys to save you just for you?"

Jockley shook his head, turned around, and continued walking.

"I am a mercenary, that's true, but I'm not stupid."

Huang Shuangyan was stunned.

"So what do you want?" she asked.

Jockley didn't answer immediately. They climbed around a corner, and an upward maintenance ladder appeared ahead.

That was the exit leading to the warehouse roof. Big Yellow went up first to scout the way, and only after confirming it was safe did Jockley speak.

"Two things. First, I'll help you get out of this mess, and you'll settle the debts you owe me. Second, after the debts are settled, you'll take me to that development area."

Huang Shuangyan gasped.

"Are you crazy?! That's new territory that Yadea Technology Company recently leased. It's armed and the security level is definitely very high. I heard that recently, even money can't buy them an extension of their alarm time."

"So you have to take me with you even more," Jockley interrupted her.

"You're a black market dealer, and you frequent the wilderness. You're definitely more familiar with the different areas of the wilderness than I am. You know how to bypass the guards and which places are safe. As for why I went there..."

He pulled the bottle of blue tissue fluid from his pocket, which now glowed faintly in his hand.

"I need to find out exactly what this thing is, where it came from, and why it drove those people so crazy."

Jockley stared at the bottle. His body no longer craved these things like it had when he first encountered them, but the thing still inexplicably gave him a sense of familiarity.

"Also, I need to figure out if it has anything to do with my journey home."

Huang Shuangyan opened her mouth as if to say something, but ultimately didn't.

She looked at Jockley's profile. The young man's face still looked tired, and his eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze was unusually firm at this moment.

It was a look she rarely saw in this world; it was a persistent clarity, but also a harbinger of madness.

"I'll count to three. If you don't respond after three, I'll pretend I was never here. One."

"etc!"

"two"

"I promise, I promise, okay?"

Although Huang Shuangyan tried to keep her voice down, it still sounded quite out of place in the quiet pipe.

"Damn it, I must have owed you something in my past life!"

Jockley smiled, his mouth widening to reveal his teeth, which gleamed white in the dim light.

"Then it's settled."

He reached up and touched the bomb collar around his neck.

Huang Shuangyan understood. She took out a small decoder from her tool bag, leaned over, aligned the interface with the lock hole on the side of the collar, and gently turned it.

"Click."

The collar snapped open and fell off Jockley's neck. Jockley picked him up and put him into the small storage compartment on Big Yellow's back.

He touched his neck; a faint red mark remained on his skin, but the ever-present chill and oppressive feeling had disappeared.

Jockley let out a long sigh of relief, feeling as if a huge burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

The three of them climbed up the maintenance ladder, pushed open the top inspection cover, and came to the warehouse roof.

The blood moon hung high, its light pouring down, turning the rooftops of the entire warehouse district a dark red, while the neon lights of the Mirror Lake Wharf area still flickered in the distance.

Nearby, the crisscrossing passageways between the warehouses extend like a maze.

They proceeded cautiously along the edge of the roof, with Jockley leading the way, Big Yellow bringing up the rear, and Huang Shuangyan sandwiched in between.

After walking for about several dozen meters, just as they were about to reach the ventilation shaft they had come in through, Jockley suddenly stopped again.

"You know who those guys are who are pursuing you, right?"

Huang Shuangyan's body stiffened.

"The man in red," Jockley uttered the three words in a flat tone.

Huang Shuangyan gritted her teeth, staring at Qiao Keli's retreating figure, her mind racing. How did he know? Why would he know? Could it be that he...?

"If you already know who the man in red is, why are you asking me?" she retorted, her voice tinged with wariness.

Jockley turned around and shook the blue tissue fluid bottle in his hand.

"Now it's my turn to ask and you answer, Aunt Huang, don't get the order wrong."

Huang Shuangyan was silent for a few seconds. Looking into the young man's overly clear eyes, she suddenly realized something.

He wasn't trying to trick her or extract information; he genuinely needed this information, and he judged that she knew it.

"Damn it." She cursed, unsure whether she was cursing Jockley or herself, "I've had the worst luck imaginable."

She took a deep breath and began to speak.

"The Red Men are an armed force jointly deployed to various colony planets by the six major corporate headquarters on the Olympus Ring. Each colony has a company in which they jointly hold shares, and the president of the company will have a Red Men army under his command."

Ostensibly, they were assisting the colonies in their defense, preventing another AI attack, but frankly, they were just supervisors—monitoring whether the colonial companies were doing their jobs properly, whether they were engaging in any underhanded dealings, and whether they had discovered anything they shouldn't have.

I don’t know exactly how many red-clad people there are in the Deep Space Graveyard, but it’s definitely more than just the few who chased me today.

As one of the twenty-one main inhabited planets in this star system, and one that was seized from the AI, the Forgotten City certainly has a large number of red-clad figures.

"Almost every one of the men in red has an implanted superhuman chip, and their entire bodies are equipped with military-grade combat prosthetics."

Furthermore, due to prolonged exposure to high concentrations of abnormal energy or high-frequency neural modification, they all have some degree of problems.

"What's the problem?" Jockley asked.

"Crazy." Huang Shuangyan uttered the word, her voice filled with fear.

"It's a kind of calm madness, unlike that of ordinary cyber lunatics."

They can chat with you while smiling and planning how to dismantle you into parts. I saw it once, a long time ago, when a man in red was dealing with a traitor… that person was dismantled for three days before finally dying!

Jockley didn't speak; he recalled the brain in the mine that called itself Little Jack and what it had said.

Everything fits together.

This blue tissue fluid is definitely not simple. It can turn ordinary people into superhumans, attract the pursuit of men in red, and make people willing to pay any price to obtain it.

It is very likely related to that broken space station, and to going home.

This thought, like a seed, quickly took root and sprouted in his heart. He had to go to that development area, he absolutely had to!

Jockley closed his eyes and activated his superpowers.

A burning sensation between his brows spread his vision, and heat sources within a hundred meters appeared in his mind: the ground passage of the warehouse area, the patrol drones in the distance... No abnormal heat sources were approaching, at least not now.

But just as he was about to deactivate his powers, he sensed something was amiss.

This anomaly was very subtle, like ripples on the surface of water coming from somewhere deep within the warehouse area; it was definitely not a physical fluctuation.

Fluctuations in supernatural energy!! Someone else is using supernatural abilities, and they're not far away.

Jockley suddenly opened his eyes.

"Hurry," he said, his voice urgent. "They've found us."