Wang Daolong could easily tell that these guys were quite wary of Ling Tong. However... weren't they supposed to have a peaceful discussion? The word "roll" didn't sound very peaceful at all.
Wang Jixuan continued to show his nervousness, adjusting his decorative black-framed glasses. He focused his energy on the four spiritual energy users inside the armored vehicle, ready to run away if a fight broke out. He wasn't joking; he was also wary of Ling Tong's destructive power.
The armored vehicle in the center opened its back door, and two figures jumped down one after the other. A few seconds later, Wang Jixuan saw what Zhou Zhengde and the law enforcement officers had praised... her particularly good figure.
Qin Qin, the new head of biology, a researcher from the Thirteenth Institute, and a top student of Professor Zhuang. She was dressed quite ordinarily, wearing thick-soled sneakers, loose long pants, a high-neck long sleeve shirt, and a white lab coat that made her look like a doctor just coming out of a ward.
Yet, her ordinary outfit couldn't hide her stunning figure, especially the waist-to-hip ratio she had built up through years of fitness. She had a hot body, and her features were somewhat sweet. Her eyes tried hard to express sharpness, but her round face made her look a bit... cute.
Wang Daolong suddenly understood why Zhou praised this biology head so much. In short, she was a high-spec version of Wei Na. Of course, Doctor Wei had a very unique personality and was quite charming—Wang Daolong's private addition.
Qin Qin had her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, raised an eyebrow, and said with a hint of helplessness, "Major Ling Tong, I'm here to have a good talk with you, not to confront you. We aren't enough for you to fight against. But the energy of the battle princess and the power of spiritual energy users shouldn't be wasted on internal strife, don’t you think?"
The muscular spiritual energy user behind her stared coldly at Ling Tong. Wang Jixuan judged that he was a telekinetic user.
Ling Tong held a megaphone and replied calmly, "What do you want to talk about?"
"We want to improve efficiency!" Qin Qin immediately leaned forward. The muscular spiritual energy user tried to follow but was stopped by her turning around and raising her hand. "No need. You go back first. I’m not aggressive, so Major Ling Tong won’t attack me. If you come along, things could get worse."
The muscular man shrugged, took two steps back, and watched Ling Tong with his arms crossed. Qin Qin hurried a few steps to the side of the vehicle. She glanced at Wang Jixuan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, then showed a seemingly sincere smile that was at least not off-putting. After the window rolled down, she extended her right hand to Ling Tong.
"Nice to officially meet you," Qin Qin said. "I'm Qin Qin."
"Mm," Ling Tong didn’t extend her hand in response. Qin Qin looked at Wang Jixuan and said, "Hey, this young man, shouldn’t you show some gentlemanly manners and shake my hand to avoid making it awkward?"
"Sorry." Wang Jixuan maintained his nervousness and replied, "I'm the logistics mechanic for the commander. A mechanic's hands are their entire value; I can't easily touch unknown beings."
Ling Tong's cold expression softened slightly with a hint of a smile. "Alright then."
Qin Qin pressed against the car window frame and said with a smile, "The events that happened in this fortress are quite interesting and brutal. I must clarify that I have no ties with Kong Nu; I was sent by headquarters to restore the reputation of the Thirteenth Institute."
The Thirteenth Institute, reputation? Wang Jixuan leaned back slightly. Ling Tong asked, "And then?"
"The internal situation of the Thirteenth Institute is quite complicated. Some researchers and spiritual energy users think they are superior, believing they are the future rulers of the human world, and that the limit of spiritual energy is to become gods... and so on." Qin Qin made a disgusted expression. "But we all know that spiritual energy is just a special energy we discovered from the blade beasts; we're just trying to apply it to humans.
"The initial experiments produced some... monsters, which might be the endpoint of this path. So my research direction is somewhat different from my teacher, Professor Zhuang. I'm studying how to help spiritual energy users return to normal after the war ends, after we achieve final victory, to prevent them from becoming new blade beasts cultivated by humanity... if we can win."
She blinked gently. Ling Tong replied, "I'm not interested in the research direction of spiritual energy users. Please get to the point."
"I'm just here to get to know you," Qin Qin smiled. "And by the way, to investigate that wild spiritual energy user, Mu Liang."
Wang Daolong found the term "wild" a bit annoying. But he couldn't deny that after Qin Qin's previous statement, his dislike for her had lessened significantly.
Qin Qin was now carefully observing Wang Jixuan's expression but quickly felt disappointed and looked away. She couldn't see anything wrong; this junior mechanic showed a natural curiosity when it came to spiritual energy users.
Qin Qin then asked, "Major Ling Tong, do you know Mu Liang well?"
"Not well."
"He's a spiritual energy user created by the military. You wouldn't know him? What’s your purpose here then?"
"On vacation."
"Alright, it seems the major doesn't trust me enough. I just want to research Mu Liang," Qin Qin sighed. "Can we grab a bite together? I'm a great cook."
"You've already taken up too much of my time. Please leave." Ling Tong slightly raised her head, staring at Qin Qin.
Qin Qin instinctively took a half step back. After all, she was just a researcher and found it hard to withstand the aura of a battle princess who had fought blade beasts for years.
Ling Tong lightly pressed the accelerator, seemingly about to crash into the three armored vehicles. The muscular spiritual energy user narrowed his eyes and stepped forward. Wang Jixuan extended his left hand; if the other side released a mental impact, he could quickly throw out a "soul-sealing talisman" and stick it to Ling Tong's waist.
Having been ambushed by Zheng Shiduo last time, Wang Daolong was naturally prepared for targeted defenses.
Suddenly, Ling Tong naturally raised her left mechanical arm, resting it on the car frame, palm facing the empty armored vehicle in front. The muscular telekinetic user shouted, "Major Ling Tong! You can't leave! Please cooperate..."
Buzz—whoosh!
Ling Tong's left mechanical arm vibrated slightly, and her palm emitted a purple laser, shooting out a purple energy ball! The hood of the armored vehicle exploded, and the people standing in front scattered to avoid it, with two of them getting injured directly.
The muscular telekinetic user's shouting abruptly stopped, his body frozen in place. Ling Tong aimed her left hand at the armored vehicle in front, and the mechanical arm emitted an electronic female voice: "Destruction cannon level one preparation."
The group instantly fell into chaos. "Reverse! Quickly reverse!" The central armored vehicle pushed forward a couple of times and then quickly backed up, turning left outside the tunnel. The muscular spiritual energy user glared fiercely at Ling Tong and jumped aside.
Ling Tong drove the small terrain vehicle steadily forward, retracting her left arm, her ponytail not even swaying as she pressed the gas and sped away.
At the tunnel entrance, the muscular man cursed, and Qin Qin walked back with her hands in her lab coat pockets, looking utterly helpless. "Didn't we agree that I would negotiate?"
The muscular spiritual energy user angrily replied, "Has she always been this reckless?"
"Come on, this is a battle princess; there are only twenty-five of them in the D5 battle zone." Qin Qin raised her hand to her forehead. "Now look, we are already constrained everywhere in this fortress, and the only possible breakthrough has been cut off by your threat."
"I threatened her?" The muscular spiritual energy user fumed, "I just spoke a bit harshly! That's how I talk!"
"She just warned us. This low-energy configuration destruction cannon is nothing more than a warm-up for her."
Qin Qin narrowed her eyes slightly, a faint smile forming at the corner of her mouth.
"But this also proves that Ling Tong must be quite familiar with Mu Liang. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stopped at all. Based on our previous analysis of her character, she would have blasted a path open right from the start. Her choice to stop actually shows she wants to hear what we have to say; it's a subconscious thought process, wanting to know how much information we have about Mu Liang."
"Did you notice that Wang Zheng next to her?" Qin Qin asked.
"I noticed."
"Keep an eye on him, twenty-four hours a day. You're allowed to use control skills on some miners and soldiers, but these puppets must keep their distance from Ling Tong; she can detect them."
Qin Qin slightly pouted and quickly reminded, "Remember, if you control someone, make sure to handle it cleanly afterward, leaving no traces. We need to restore the Thirteenth Institute's reputation in the eyes of most people in this fortress as much as possible. Alright, work is done for today. I need to figure out how to ask Captain Zhou out; his figure is just too great."
"Researcher Qin Qin, I must remind you that Zhou Zhengde is the grandson of that devil commander."
"It's just a date; I'm not trying to marry him," Qin Qin winked. "Of course, if I could marry him, maybe I could get a title of associate professor before I turn thirty."
The muscular spiritual energy user had a fierce look in his eyes. "Can I handle Wang Zheng my way?"
"Just be careful not to expose yourself."
Qin Qin climbed into the armored vehicle but leaned out to say, "Bring a few incendiary bombs with you. If you get discovered and injured by Ling Tong, just end it yourself, and I’ll announce that you were controlled by a mimic blade beast. My work is already difficult enough; don’t add extra burdens, okay?"
"Okay, I'll try my best."
"Let me feel those muscles; they feel really good." Qin Qin reached out of the small car window and touched the muscular man's chest, then chuckled and urged the armored vehicle to speed up.
...
After passing through the tunnel entrance, Ling Tong and Wang Jixuan arrived at a camp in a valley. The area was surrounded by low mountains, where they could see artillery positions, missile launchers, and a fortified bunker every hundred meters.
The buildings in the camp were a bit chaotic, with several mine entrances visible at the edges, and miners in work clothes coming in and out. These miners must have come from the forty-seventh or eighth level underground of the fortress.
The miners only operated at the camp's edges, in their designated dormitory area, where several dirty police robots were also scattered around. Wang Jixuan had seen in his mechanic textbooks that autonomous robots were once an important force for humans to fight back against blade beasts. However, as blade beasts evolved into "magnetic-backed individuals," the robots' control networks often malfunctioned, even leading to autonomous robots randomly shooting at friendly forces on the battlefield.
A large number of autonomous robots were directly retired from the front lines and now served as police products, doing dirty and tiring work in the expanded areas at the edge of this fortress.
As the sun slanted to the west, the light was hidden behind the southwestern hillside, and some buildings in the camp had already lit up. Most of the buildings here were made of iron sheets or containers, mostly housing engineers stationed here and their families.
Excluding the military camp, there were probably over three thousand residents and miners.
Ling Tong drove straight to the southwest corner of the camp, where seven or eight large containers were stacked together, already opened up inside.
In every corner of this large container building, there were surveillance cameras and semi-automatic weapons, indicating that the contents inside were valuable. As they got closer, Wang Jixuan could see a crooked light strip hanging on the front door.
[Exclusive Supply Station for Battle Princess Ling Tong].
Ling Tong visibly relaxed a bit and said softly, "The conditions here are a bit rough. Since it's only for a short stay, it hasn't been tidied up much... Inside, there are three engineers who came with me from the front line; they’re a family who do my daily maintenance and supplies. They are all excellent technicians... I will introduce you to them later."
"Alright." Wang Jixuan got out of the car to grab his luggage, but Ling Tong was already a step ahead and picked up his suitcase.
Wang Daolong immediately said, "I can do it."
"Not a problem; it's not a combat situation." Ling Tong said softly, "One of the reasons I asked you to be my mechanic is your high carrying capacity, which can help me transport emergency supplies in combat situations. There will be times when you need to carry heavy items."
"Don't we need keys for the car?"
"It's a military vehicle; who would steal it here?"
Ling Tong approached the alloy door in the middle of the outermost large container. The corner camera turned and scanned automatically, and the alloy door opened quickly.
Her earlier statement about "not tidying up much" was clearly modest. Inside the three-meter deep, twelve-meter long space, the lights were bright, filled with various instruments and fifteen black alloy boxes, all neatly organized. The walls on both sides were lined with various tools, categorized and orderly.
This place was practically the ideal workshop for a senior mechanic.
Behind this large container was the main supply station, a double-layered space made up of six containers.
"Come this way; they are waiting to meet you." Ling Tong held his suitcase, standing in front of the open door.
She tilted her head slightly, seeming to find it hard to speak, but still said softly, "Welcome to join my team."
Wang Daolong smiled and stepped forward.
(End of Chapter)