Above the Blood Moon

Ahead was a relatively open area, and in the center of the area stood a building. From the remaining structure, its original shape could be barely discerned. This was the space station they had come from.

Jockley looked at it, his heart pounding as if it would burst out of his chest.

This is the place where he woke up in the cryo-chamber, the source of that blue tissue fluid, the starting point of all the mysteries.

"I'll keep watch here. You guys hurry up. Remember, you only have twenty minutes."

Huang Shuangyan looked around warily and waved for Qiao Keli to act quickly.

Jockley nodded and walked into the ruins with Big Yellow. Big Yellow started working as soon as they entered.

It walked to a corner where several service robots of the same model as Big Yellow lay, but were already scrapped. Big Yellow squatted down, its mechanical fingers deftly disassembling the leg joints of those robots.

A few minutes later, it was fitted with two new mechanical legs. The new mechanical legs moved much more smoothly, and the uncoordinated feeling when walking completely disappeared.

"Master," said Big Yellow, "I'll go see if there's anything else we can use. You..."

"I'll go over there," Jockley said, pointing to the depths of the space station.

He remembered that the freezer was inside.

Jockley walked up to the cryogenic chamber, its surface covered with a thin layer of dust. He reached out and gently wiped the dust off the observation window; in his haste to save his life, he hadn't thoroughly checked many areas.

Then he saw a line of small characters engraved on the inside of the observation window, near the bottom.

Those are two Chinese characters! Lu Yao.

Jockley stopped breathing.

He stared at the two words, his eyes unblinking, as if afraid they would disappear in the blink of an eye. Then he reached out and gently touched the observation window with his fingertips, stroking the two words through the cold glass.

Lu Yao.

That was his name. His real name, his name on Earth. He thought no one in the world knew it, no one remembered it. He thought that this borrowed identity, Jockley, would be his eternal disguise.

But in the cryogenic chamber where he awoke, his name was engraved.

"ha……"

He laughed out loud.

"Hahaha……"

He smiled, but tears streamed down his face, dripping onto the observation window and mingling with the dust.

"It's true, it's all true, the space station, Earth, I really..."

He might actually go back.

These clues do indeed point to a possible path home.

As long as he keeps searching, keeps investigating, keeps going...

"Jockley!"

Huang Shuangyan's voice came from outside, very low but clearly urgent. Qiao Keli snapped back to reality, wiped away his tears, took one last look at the name, and then turned and rushed out of the room.

Outside, Huang Shuangyan was crouching in the shadows of the ruins, one hand to her mouth in a shushing gesture, the other pointing outside, her expression tense.

Jockley walked over quickly and squatted down next to her.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone's coming."

She didn't finish speaking, but Jockley already understood what she wanted to say.

Big Yellow activated its enhanced hearing mode, and an audio waveform popped up on the panel, fluctuating with the sounds outside. The sound was then converted into text and displayed on the panel, allowing Jockley to perceive the outside world without having to activate his special ability.

Two hundred meters away from the space station ruins, several dark red figures silently landed on the concrete ground.

Pisius retracted the jet propulsion wing on his back, and the metal soles of his boots touched the ground almost silently. Four men in red followed behind him, and Pisius looked around.

The development zone was exceptionally quiet at night, with only the low rumble of construction machinery in the distance and the whistling of the night wind blowing through the ruins. But when his mechanical eye switched to thermal imaging mode, it captured a different scene.

There were several clear traces of fresh heat sources on the ground.

"Footprints," Pisius whispered.

A man in red squatted down, pressed his fingers to the ground, and a tiny scanning probe popped out from his fingertip, flashing blue light.

"Sir, the traces are very fresh, appearing no more than forty minutes ago. There are three people involved. Two of them have slightly elevated body temperatures, possibly indicating a lower degree of modification or being primitive humans. The third person is most likely a highly modified individual."

Pisius's mechanical eyes narrowed slightly.

"That little mouse really did come here. Just how much do they know about the blue tissue fluid? A cunning enemy!!"

He took a metal container from his waist, reached inside, and took out a head.

The bald, middle-aged man had his eyes closed and his face as pale as paper. His neck had been neatly severed, and now a dozen thin data cables were attached to it, with the other end of the cables connected to a portable neural reading device.

He was also a man in red, just not the same as before. When he abandoned the mission because he found it troublesome to have a complete clue, he was executed by the internal authorities. Pisius placed his head on the ground and pressed the switch on the reading device.

"Buzz—"

As the sound rang out, the device started up, the data cable emitted a faint blue light, the head's eyes suddenly opened, the eyeballs rolled wildly, and the mouth opened, emitting a silent roar.

Pisius crouched down and stared into those empty eyes.

Just as he was about to search his memory, the communicator on his chest suddenly vibrated.

Pisius frowned, but still raised his hand to signal his team to stop, and then answered the call.

"Buzz—"

A holographic projection unfolded in front of him, showing a man around fifty years old wearing a dark blue CEO uniform.

He sat behind a large desk with a huge floor-to-ceiling window behind him, through which he could see the outline of the Forgotten City dome.

The man was none other than Lord Loft, the current president of Yadea Company.

Pisius immediately straightened up and placed his right fist against his chest.

"President, we are currently carrying out a tracking mission assigned by headquarters. What are your instructions?"

The president did not speak immediately. He placed his hands on the table and looked at Pixius's face through the projection. His gaze was calm, but it carried a sense of oppression from someone who had long held a high position.

"Your mission is suspended. I have a new priority mission that you and the captains of the other three Red Men squads need to execute immediately."

Pisius paused for a moment.

"But sir, we've already located the target's position and will be there soon."

"Pisius," the president interrupted him, his voice turning a degree colder, "Are you questioning my orders?"

After a brief silence, Pisius could feel the gazes of his teammates behind him. He took a deep breath, and the output power of the fusion core in his chest increased slightly, but his expression remained calm.

"I wouldn't dare."

"Very good." The president's expression softened slightly. "The coordinates have been sent to your nervous system. It's an underground facility left over from a previous civilization, and there might be a weapon blueprint hidden inside."

"This is my order: obtain the blueprints at all costs. If you cannot obtain them, destroy the facility to ensure that the blueprints do not fall into the wrong hands."

"But the mission here..." Pisius was still unwilling to give up. "The target is right in front of me. Just give me ten minutes."

"Pishius!"

The president called his name for the third time, this time with obvious displeasure in his voice.

Pisius fell silent.

"Understood, we'll set off immediately."

The president nodded.

"Go."

The projection flickered and disappeared, communication was cut off, and silence returned to the ruins, with only the howling night wind and the occasional unconscious hoarse sounds from the head.

Pisius stood still, motionless, and after a few seconds, he raised his foot and stomped hard on the head.

"Pfft."

The skull shattered, brain matter and blood splattered everywhere, the reading device sparked, then smoked and shut down.

"Sir..." a man in red asked cautiously.

Pisius turned around, his mechanical eyes scanning the surroundings. Give him ten minutes, no, five minutes, and he could lead his men in to drag those rats out. Besides, they couldn't keep using the blasphemous weapons one after another.

But not now. The president's orders are paramount. He took a deep breath.

"withdraw."

"yes!"

Pisius took one last look at the ruins.

"We will find you again."

He spoke in a low voice, as if talking to himself, or as if speaking to the person inside.

"You won't be so lucky next time."

After saying that, he turned around, his jet propulsion wings unfolded, and a stream of dark blue plasma gushed out. Five red figures soared into the sky and disappeared into the night sky before dawn.

The ruins were deathly silent.

About five minutes later, Huang Shuangyan finally dared to let out a long breath. She slumped to the ground and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.

"They're gone, damn it, that scared me to death."

Jockley relaxed, but his heart was still pounding. They were so close, so very close, to being discovered.

"Time," he said in a hoarse voice.

Huang Shuangyan glanced at the nervous system.

"Three minutes left, hurry up!"

The three rushed out of the space station and ran wildly along the same route.

When Huang Shuangyan reached the edge of the development zone, she took out her communicator and quickly entered a series of commands. Half an hour later, a hovering taxi flew in from a distance. The car was old and dilapidated, and the windows were covered with blackout film. It was obviously an illegal vehicle operating in the black market.

The car was parked outside the fence, and the three of them opened the car door and got in.

Through the car window, Jockley watched the development zone shrink smaller and smaller in his field of vision until it became a blurry outline on the horizon.

As the car stopped in front of the Gear Tavern, the eastern sky was tinged with a fish-belly red, but the blood moon had not yet fully risen. This was the darkest moment of the day, and also the quietest moment in the Forgotten City.

The streets were deserted, with only a few drunken scavengers snoring against the walls.

Huang Shuangyan opened the car door and pushed Qiao Keli and Da Huang out.

"This is it. I've already paid. Jockley, we're even. You saved me, and I helped you. Don't look for me again. I..."

She paused, looked at Jockley's tired and pale face, and suddenly couldn't continue. In the end, she just waved her hand.

"Never mind, let's go."

The car door closed, the hovercar rose into the air, turned around, and disappeared into the darkness before dawn.

Jockley stood at the tavern entrance, watching the direction the car had disappeared in, until Big Yellow touched his arm with his mechanical finger.

"Master, it's time to go inside."

Jockley snapped out of his reverie, nodded, and pushed open the tavern door. It was quiet inside; Daikiri was probably still asleep. Art and the priest hadn't returned yet. Only a small lamp was lit on the bar, casting a dim, yellowish glow on the floor.

Jockley groped his way up the stairs back to his room, then collapsed as if all his strength had been drained.

The scenes from today are still replaying in my mind; too much information and too many emotions are like a tangled mess stuck in my chest.

He wanted to organize his thoughts, to reflect, and to understand what all of this really meant.

But I'm too tired.

Physical exhaustion, mental depletion, and the aftereffects of using blasphemous items all combined to overwhelm his last shred of sanity.

His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his vision began to blur. Before he completely lost consciousness, the last thing he heard was Da Huang gently closing the door.

"Sleep well, Master. I'll stay here and watch over you. Goodnight."

Then, darkness swallowed everything.