Chapter 438: Chapter 438

By the time Jing Shu arrived, Yang Yang was already there; he had found a white convertible from somewhere. It resembled a tourist sightseeing car and was loaded with all kinds of supplies; it was clear he’d had a bountiful harvest. In contrast, Jing Shu appeared somewhat disheveled, carrying over a dozen parcels from which something odd would occasionally fall out.

For instance, an artist’s painting had just fallen out. Jing Shu, in a rush, punched and ruined it. Instead, she treasured the emptied crystal picture frame as if it were precious, placing it on Hao Yunlai’s head before they continued on their way.

Yang Yang parked the car outside the tower, and Jing Shu placed her parcels in it before looking up at their ultimate target—the tower.

This tower was the main reason Jing Shu and her group dared not approach. It was a military defense tower with a two-kilometer perimeter. This meant the interior of Rhein Manor was effectively a vacuum zone, so the tower only targeted external invaders.

Although Jing Shu didn’t quite understand it, tests conducted by Snake Spirit and her group indicated that the tower housed many advanced intelligent weapon systems. These systems would formulate attack plans based on an intruder’s size and shoot down any moving, non-living entities that approached.

They had previously considered using armored vehicles or tanks, but those couldn’t get near the area. Not to mention, next to it was North America’s largest Zhuangyan Temple, which also possessed considerable armed forces. However, even if they managed to sneak in, they would have no way to take down the tower from two kilometers away.

"Where is Hao Yunlai?" Yang Yang looked around but couldn’t find him.

"I’m here..." Hao Yunlai poked his head out, looking disheveled. His neck was adorned with various pieces of jewelry and the crystal picture frame. His left hand held what looked like a very expensive candlestick, and his right, an antique diamond plate. He stood up with a CLATTER, and many small trinkets—items that had fallen out on the way and been forcefully stuffed back onto him by Jing Shu—also tumbled to the ground. Hao Yunlai dared not ask about them, nor did he dare discard them.

"You’ve worked hard." Jing Shu pulled Hao Yunlai out and removed all the miscellaneous items. In the process, she retrieved the high-tech "Eternally Burning" candlestick and "Indestructible" diamond plate, as well as the crystal picture frame, and placed them all into the white convertible.

"That’s the situation. We can tweak our Plan B now," Jing Shu said as she and Yang Yang entered the high tower. Hao Yunlai, who was practically crippled, still hobbled into the tower after Jing Shu; after all, who knew what dangers might lie within.

"We can’t take that tycoon’s word at face value. Things are probably not that simple," Yang Yang suggested. "Let’s try to shut down this tower’s operations first. That should allow the others to get in easily and save us a lot of trouble."

The tower had over a dozen levels. Each was just over ten square meters in size—very small—and designed to house weapons. Each level had an intelligent mainframe, and the weapons on each level were different, with different operational areas and ranges.

With the chip, Jing Shu could indeed move about freely, but these mainframes were not under her control. She had no authority to shut them down, nor were there conventional options like ’unplugging the power’ or ’cutting the wires.’

Jing Shu considered smashing the machines, but a warning appeared: forcefully destroying them would trigger a self-destruct sequence or something similar. So, she came up with another method.

"A 120mm Chasing Gun? I’ll dismantle your entire turret and base. Let’s see you chase anything then!"

"A 12-barrel, largest-caliber rocket launcher? Turning this over to the state would earn at least 500 Contribution Value."

"A Single-wing reconnaissance early warning aircraft? This is a real treasure. With this, we can conduct surveillance from home anytime we want."

"A terminal high-altitude area defense system? This one’s a bit troublesome, but if I remove its booster, it’ll be useless, right? Wait, it looks like the surrounding materials can also be taken back for research. That way, each of us could get at least 200 Contribution Value."

"Look, these Tracking Guns embedded in the fortress walls are equipped with the latest technology. They’re perfect as new weapons for us."

At first, Hao Yunlai didn’t understand what Jing Shu was up to. But as he watched her skillful dismantling—twisting off some parts, forcibly yanking out others—his jaw gradually dropped in astonishment.

They couldn’t disrupt the mainframe’s operation, but the rules didn’t say they couldn’t remove the weapons! No, wait... these weapons were ’naturally detaching’ themselves!

Initially, Jing Shu just wanted to stop the tower from operating. But later, she actually started estimating the value of the components, even having Old Yang and the disabled Hao Yunlai act as laborers, moving the items down piece by piece...

When Plan B was modified on the fly, with Zhen Nantian taking control of the overall situation, Lingling providing sniper cover from outside, and Snake Spirit leading Monkey inside, they found Jing Shu had nearly dismantled all the tower’s components. Only the mainframe was left, humming:

"Searching for Chasing Gun..." Chapters fırst released on 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⁂𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⁂𝔫𝔢𝔱

"Searching for rocket launcher..."

Snake Spirit drove the white tourist vehicle, carting load after load of materials to the outskirts of Rhein Manor. Tan Ke was outside to receive them and was responsible for then transporting these supplies to freighter number 808 on the Canal.

Finally, Jing Shu and the others reached the tower’s secret chamber. Prompted by the robot’s incessant urging, they used a chip to unlock it. Cautiously pushing open the door, they were all wary of deception.

An icy chill washed over them. On the ground lay a pool of blood that had not yet congealed and a corpse, gruesomely battered by a blunt object. Upon closer inspection, it was the middle-aged man, dressed exactly as he had appeared on the screen.

Of course, besides the corpse, the room was full of confidential documents, important materials, and the target of Jing Shu’s team’s current mission: the newly developed life-extending formula!

Yang Yang darted forward and immediately gathered all the documents into his arms. Jing Shu, meanwhile, stuffed the jumbled test tubes and all sorts of potentially useful experimental materials into a sack, while Monkey swept up the supplies along another wall.

The sound of another click echoed, accompanied by the flash of a camera.

Jing Shu and Yang Yang spun around. A robot in the corner had raised its manipulators in a V-sign. Its screen displayed images of their recent actions, starkly contrasted with the corpse on the ground.

"Confirmation of Master Job Sibus’s death. Executing death protocol. Sounding alarm. Initiating Rhein Manor final self-destruct sequence..."

"Death confirmation transmitted. Identifying murderers. Initiating global manhunt. Reward: 1,000,000 pounds of food..."

"Requesting assistance..."

At that moment, an insidious alarm blared throughout the entire Rhein Manor, followed by the THUMP-THUMP of signal guns.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP..." An urgent, life-threatening countdown began.

This sound... I’m all too familiar with it, Jing Shu realized. Isn’t this the same sound as when the entire house exploded before?

Even Hao Yunlai clutched his head, muttering, "Danger, danger, very dangerous..."

"So, he lured us here to make others believe he was really dead!" one of them exclaimed.

The man’s motive was simple: to make Jing Shu and the others his scapegoats! A tycoon who faked his own death—how could he possibly collaborate with people robbing his villa’s supplies? Moreover, he would never secret with anyone. Dead men tell no tales.