Heâs not in any serious trouble; the exoskeleton and helmet saved him.
Right when he was about to be sucked into the monsterâs mouth, the injector Su Xiaocai fired took effect, and during the following round of shots, he relied on the exoskeleton to stubbornly withstand the crushing pressure.
The soldier kept mumbling something, and Colonel Yuan leaned in to listen.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you Su Caishen for your blessing."
Colonel Yuan: "..." Since when does the God of Wealth also grant safety charms? He glanced at Su Xiaocai; she herself was indeed pretty good at staying alive.
"Scared me to death." Major Liu slumped his shoulders, deeply grateful there was a Su Xiaocai around who actually used her brain.
Doctors and nurses quickly rushed down from outside. Feng Ruchuan was lifted onto a stretcher, still unable to let go of her hatred.
They didnât know what had happened below; they only cared about Feng Ruchuanâs physical condition. "Get some sleep first; youâll be fine when you wake up."
Under the effect of the anesthesia, she finally closed her eyes.
Su Xiaocai didnât care, patted the dust off her clothes, hugged Huahua and planted a fierce kiss. "My lovely flower."
Huahua stretched out a paw, refusing the poop-scooperâs forced kiss.
Hugging Huahua, who despised how dirty the ground was, Su Xiaocai swept her gaze around. The place was a complete mess.
"What comes next is a massive project." The monsters were as dead as dead could be, and after they died, the stench they gave off was not much different from a tenâthousandâyearâold open sewer.
Colonel Yuan wiped the sweat off his face. "Not just a massive project." Most of the Min Family members were in prison now; who was left to control this place and cut the server connection?
Obviously their partners.
The other side clearly had serious backing; to still be able to send people over at this point to make trouble and play dirty tricks was downright vicious.
Su Xiaocai walked a few steps and found the Space Locking Device hidden in the pile of monsters.
And that very first monster corpse theyâd killedâshe took out Insect Slaughter, sliced open its body, and the nutrient devices strung through its insides rolled out.
They were very similar to the apparatus inside the Mother Body. The one in the Mother Body was the highâend version; this was ultra lowâend.
Su Xiaocai sealed them up in bags, and Yang Zhao started edging closer again.
Su Xiaocai grew impatient; a stranger suddenly approaching broke her train of thought.
"Youâd better have something real to say."
Yang Zhao looked very innocent. "I donât know why youâre so hostile toward me. I just want to ask if thereâs anything I can help with?"
"No need, thanks." Who knows if youâre human or a ghost. "Just do your own job; my business doesnât need you meddling."
Her rejection was blatant. Colonel Yuan and the two Majors stepped in to block Yang Zhao. "Mr. Yang, please continue your work."
"Alright, alright." Yang Zhao still added, "I really donât mean any harm. I just want to get to know Professor Su. After all, my mom is in businessâyou should be able to find that out."
Yang Zhao, who spoke the truth without the slightest scruple, thought heâd at least earn a glance from Su Xiaocai.
Nope. Su Xiaocai just kept working, fully focused.
She wasnât short on money, and when it came to cooperation, she had her own set of criteria.
After Yang Zhao walked off, Colonel Yuan sent a message to other intelligence officers in the army, telling them to look into Yang Zhao.
The intelligence officers quickly got back to him.
On Blue Star, Yang Zhao counted as a public figure. His mother, Yang Tingzhen, was that very same richest person on Blue Star. Starting from nothing, building from scratch, she took only twenty years to get there.
This Ms. Yang was born into an ordinary family and once attended a military academy, wanting to join the army as a Mecha Master. Later, because of poor health, she was turned away.
Even so, she still wanted to enter the military as a civilian employee.
As for why she didnât make it in, the reason was simple: lack of money.
While she was in college, her parents died, and she didnât have money to keep studying. So before she could enter the military, she started a small businessâbasically like a streetâstall, shoestringâbudget kind of operation.
On the surface, it looked like a traditional inspirational story of a selfâmade strong woman.
But the background check had flagged it as suspicious.
The startup money for that street stall, given her family situation, shouldnât have appeared overnight.
It was said that a solitary elderly neighbor next door wrote a will before suddenly dying, leaving the money to her as business capital.
The willâs content was a very clichĂ©d script: she was kind, and while everyone else ignored the old man, she alone stayed warm and attentive.
None of that is a problem in itself. Being kind is a fine quality.
The problem lay with the money the old man left behind.
It was cash and jewelry stored in a bank safe, with no clear source.
But the old man was dead, and dead men tell no tales.
Too many coincidences stacked together, and the background check marked her as unqualified, so she could only continue as a businesswoman.
After Ms. Yang failed to get into the military, she wanted to enter politics. But once youâve gone into businessâand succeeded at itâitâs very hard to squeeze into the political arena.
The Ten Stars Republic has a very particular political system; it wouldnât allow her to climb too high.
Unless it was her descendants entering. Yang Zhao was her only son; his father was unknown.