Chapter 613: “Trade”

Old Joe scratched his shoulder somewhat irritably—a fairly humanlike gesture, as if it were a habit left over from when he still had flesh and blood—and then his gaze fell back on the golden-haired elf before him. The optical sensors deeply embedded in his protective crystal gleamed with dangerous light, and a surge of anger and uncontrollable destructive impulse stirred within his logic chips.

This flesh-and-blood, this antisocial rat, this consumable that had run out of the laboratory, this woman who had even once ridden over his head—she was always so lucky, even returning intact after such a terrible accident. Every move the golden-haired elf made seemed like wordless mockery and provocation, and now the calm fearlessness in her eyes disgusted him even more.

“I thought after all these years of adaptation, you’d have learned the rules, at least learned to respect your ‘senior,’” Old Joe said casually, as if he didn’t care at all about the weapons clutched by the two guard soldiers on the scene. “You’ve got nothing now—I know you’re still hiding some unspeakable ‘little secrets,’ but those are worthless in front of the Group Company. More importantly, your failure has already spread across the Group’s internal network. The losses from the Pioneer Laboratory and the increased costs from affected trade routes will all be counted against you.”

He paused there, his expression seeming to calm slightly. “Do I need to remind you? On the Group’s roster, you’re already a dead person. A dead person’s debts could have been written off in one stroke, but apparently you don’t want to ‘die’ yet—if you’re coming to me for help, you need to show the sincerity of someone asking for a favor.”

“Exactly, business is business; talking about feelings only hurts the money,” Luo laughed, looking at Old Joe’s eyes. “So name your price. What do you mean by ‘sincerity’?”

“Your experimental data from these years, all of it,” Old Joe said bluntly. The cold steel giant had dispensed with civility. “Don’t say you’ve lost your lab. I know your habits—you still have backups on hand. Even if all backups are lost, you at least have the last copy in your electronic brain. Also, your trade key in the direction of the Great Triangle Nebula—that should have been mine from the start.”

Luo’s expression turned slightly cold. “…Old Joe, isn’t that a bit too ambitious?”

“I gave you the most important investment,” Old Joe said, raising a finger to point at a mechanical limb swaying beside Luo. “These live metals are a debt you can’t shake off. Their interest has been accruing for nearly two centuries, and now it’s seeped into every bit of your assets—time to pay up, little girl.”

“And what do I get out of this deal?” Luo asked calmly, seemingly unfazed by the greed and rudeness in his words. “Being carved up and losing everything—I might as well stay in the Special Operations Bureau’s prison.”

The thin, rust-tinged mist drifted through the room, the “incense” imbued with dark magic seeming even denser than before. Old Joe felt he had gradually grown accustomed to the strange odor. He re-examined the golden-haired elf before him, the thoughts in the deepest layers of his logic chips far calmer than his outward demeanor suggested.

That timid and foolish little girl from back then had long since grown up. Although she had been the weakest and most marginal project director at her level until this accident, even the weakest warlord of Black Point was still a warlord. She wouldn’t have come here completely defenseless—the Pioneer Laboratory accident might have struck her hard, but no one could be sure how much she had hidden outside that space station.

In the no-man’s-land, the three fighters had come up empty, but at least they hadn’t opened fire. Since there was no outright breakup, it was necessary to maintain that last bit of decorum.

Luo had experienced the failure at Blackstone Space Station, escaped alive from the Special Operations Bureau’s territory, and now she had returned to the Dim Meteor Sector, actively contacting him. What did she want?

“I can help you return to Black Point Group, minimize the impact of that accident, and at least keep your position as director. No one will pursue the details of your disappearance in the Borderlands, and the internal Group investigation will stop with me,” he said unhurriedly. “I have a small laboratory in the asteroid belt of KS-4, with supporting logistics facilities. You can continue your research there.”

He paused, pulling a stiff smile onto his face. “You’re welcome. You can consider this my second investment in you.”

“Well, it does sound good,” Luo tilted her head. Although she could easily pick out the traps and hypocrisy in his words, she didn’t raise any objections, as if she truly had no other choice. After a moment’s thought, she sighed lightly. “It’s better than the current situation.”

“So?”

“So I need to think it over,” Luo said seriously. “Any deal requires careful consideration.”

“Of course, a wise move,” Old Joe spread his hands. “I’ll be waiting for your response—but I hope it won’t be too long. The Group Company will eventually learn of your return, and the next liaison officer might not be as easy to deal with as me.”

Luo made no comment. Then she coughed lightly, her expression turning serious. “Since we’ve got this far, there’s another thing I want to ask you.”

“What do you want to ask?”

“About the Order of the August Hidden Saints,” Luo said, looking seriously at the steel freak before her. “I want to know which of us is doing business with them.”

“That bunch of holy rollers who call themselves ‘hermits’?” Old Joe shook his head, the slight grinding of some mechanical structures inside indicating movement. “They’re a bit smarter than the Angelists, but only slightly. Those holy rollers have their own territory and rules; at most, they have some connections with a few fringe trade lines of the Group Company, but they don’t even qualify as ‘business partners’… Why do you suddenly ask about them?”

Luo looked into Old Joe’s eyes, as if trying to read micro-expressions from his iron shell. Then she spoke in a low voice, “Those rats stole something from me—and I suspect someone inside the Group Company was involved.”

Old Joe leaned forward. “Related to your ‘accident’?”

“That’s my suspicion,” Luo said gravely. “No evidence yet, but they left infiltration traces in my space station…”

She stopped mid-sentence, staring at Old Joe’s face, and said half-jokingly, “Should I suspect you too?”

“Do you think I would risk being discovered by the Group Company, colluding with a bunch of anti-intellectual holy rollers, just to help them blow up a Pioneer Laboratory?” Old Joe laughed hoarsely, a trademark noise coming from his chest. “Luo, I have no grievance with you… Well, you might have some grudge against me, but I’m not stupid enough to do something like that.”

Luo gave Old Joe a deep look. “…Better be that way.”

She stood up from the couch and yawned lazily.

“I need to rest—the dark wizard advised me to maintain good sleep, which helps restore my sanity.”

“…Is that also a side effect of encountering the Gloom Angel?”

“Yeah, that thing’s a real pain, and contact with it brings serious sleep problems.”

“…Unbelievable,” Old Joe also rose from the couch, responding half-heartedly. “Then I won’t disturb your rest—but don’t forget my proposal. And if the opportunity arises, I’m still very interested in your experiences during this period. You should have a lot to say about the Gloom Angel and the Borderlands… that intelligence would be quite valuable.”

He turned and walked toward the door, but just as he was about to push it open to leave, he suddenly stopped and looked back at the incense device on the coffee table.

“Also, I don’t like your incense—the smell reminds me of weak flesh and blood.”

Heavy footsteps accompanied the slight sound of mechanical joints, and the tall figure left the reception room.

Only when the silver-white luxury shuttle left the high tower platform, as confirmed by the monitor, did Luo finally let out a light sigh of relief.

She sat on the couch, no longer in that lazy, comfortable posture, but like an utterly exhausted shell, elbows on her knees, hands propping up her chin.

“Damn… disgusting…”

She muttered softly.

A faint squirming sound broke the dead silence in the room. Part of the reception room began to come alive.

The shell sensed the vitality, and Luo instantly looked up to see a face slowly emerging on the coffee table before her.

“Who was that guy? Seems pretty cocky,” Yu Sheng said curiously.

That face was quite large—not covering an entire wall, but it did fill the whole tabletop.

Luo took a sharp breath, feeling as if a bizarre and eerie force had suddenly grabbed her, roughly “lifting” her out of the swamp of Happy Home. Amid the rotting, stacked scars of Gray Dwarf Star, in the cold gas clouds of the Dim Meteor Sector, she seemed to breathe the fresh air of that valley again.

The face on the coffee table was creepy and uncanny, terrifying yet also somewhat comical.

“…Boss, you scared me to death!” Luo patted her chest, but a smile broke out on her face.

“You need to work on your adaptability,” Yu Sheng said casually. “Mo Ran could accept the existence of memes in their home planet’s atmosphere by that same afternoon.”

“Don’t compare me to those ‘cultivation’ freaks. Their mental strength is off the charts—they can even pull out their own souls to fight. They’re the freaks of this universe.”

“If Yun Qingzi heard you say that, you’d get at least three itch-scratchers,” Yu Sheng remarked. “Anyway, you haven’t answered yet. What’s that ‘Old Joe’? Your competitor? A colleague from the company?”

Luo was silent for a few seconds.

“He was my first superior, my senior, my investor—my competitor,” she said calmly. “He took my spine and turned me into part of this place. Within Black Point Group, that’s called ‘onboarding.’”

(End of chapter)