Chapter 84 Wrong Password
After a few days of intensive training, Jiang Ye finally mentored two apprentices, a source of great pride for him.
He sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, resting. Bai Chenzhu drove the car onto a bumpy mountain road, making Tang Zhao in the back seat scream and yell.
"Tsk!" Jiang Ye opened his eyes. "Have you been letting yourself go too much these past few days? Tang Zhao, I never knew you were this lively."
Tang Zhao complained, "That's different. There are only three grown men in our car now, so there's no need to be so 'gentlemanly'."
Bai Chenzhu glanced at him in the rearview mirror, somewhat surprised. "You used to call yourself a 'gentleman'?"
Tang Zhao nodded proudly.
Bai Chenzhu: ...
"Come on," Jiang Ye sneered. "I think you're just asking for a beating."
As they chatted back and forth, the car drove further and further along the secluded path. This path was clearly rarely used; there were hardly any tire tracks. As they drove further in, the car ran over the wildly growing weeds.
Tang Zhao touched the goosebumps on his arm and muttered, "Did we go the wrong way? If we've entered some primitive tribe, they'll probably slaughter and eat us."
Bai Chenzhu stopped the car, rolled down the window, and looked around while pressing one hand against the window sill. "From the direction of the theater, this is definitely the way. But the trees inside are too dense, and the car can't get in."
"Can you pinpoint exactly where it is?" Jiang Ye asked.
Bai Chenzhu tried it and shook his head, "No, it's blocked."
However, the fact that the shielding was too tight made Bai Chenzhu notice something strange.
The three of them packed up and got off the bus with bulging bags on their backs.
——
Sunlight streamed down from above, making the fine dust motes clearly visible. The chirping of birds and insects was much louder than outside, as if unseen wild beasts were lurking nearby. Tang Zhao hurriedly caught up with the two, covering his ears in frustration, "So annoying!"
"Haven't you learned to control your five senses yet?" Bai Chenzhu led the way, pushing aside the weeds and walking step by step inside.
After walking about a hundred meters, his eyes sharpened, and he ran in a certain direction. Jiang Ye almost lost Bai Chenzhu in the time it took to glance back.
Tang Zhao, tying his shoelaces, saw the two people ahead start running and hurriedly followed, asking, "What's wrong?!"
Bai Chenzhu stopped at a seemingly ordinary spot. He looked around and said to Jiang Ye, who had followed him, "There are traces of spiritual energy here, but we can't see them. Could it be that some kind of technology was used?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Ye looked around.
Tang Zhao, panting heavily, clutched his knees. He straightened up and reached out to grab a nearby tree. "What's the rush... Ouch, damn it!" He missed and fell hard to the ground, lying there in a daze, as if he couldn't understand how the tree had disappeared.
But when he turned his head to look back, what was even more horrifying was that there was clearly a tree there, but now that tree was growing up to his waist!
"My waist!" He reached out to touch it, and the body he touched was completely unharmed.
Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow, hesitated, then clapped his hands and smiled, "Good fall."
That way they won't have to look for it.
Bai Chenzhu looked helpless. Remembering that Bai Tao had been with them last time, and that Tang Zhao probably hadn't seen this thing before, he reached out and pulled Tang Zhao to his feet, explaining, "You can think of it as something a bit more advanced than a holographic projection. Don't worry, you still have your back."
Tang Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, raised his hand and touched the illusory 'tree' in front of him again and again, his eyes brimming with excitement and wonder.
They searched around the 'missing' tree, touching almost every 'fake tree'. Bai Chenzhu raised his hand and pressed down, feeling a cold, hard touch on the rough, dry trunk.
"It's here." Bai Chenzhu called Jiang Ye over, "Take a look and see how to solve it."
Jiang Ye followed the touch, patted it, and twisted something a few times. The woods in front of him disappeared, and a flying saucer-shaped object appeared in front of him.
Tang Zhao exclaimed "Wow!" twice, then frowned in disappointment, "How come this looks exactly like my stereotype of aliens!"
Bai Chenzhu closed his eyes and used his mental energy to completely envelop the flying saucer. Before he could figure out how to get in, the door opened automatically, and the voice of the 'insect' artificial intelligence came from inside.
However, they couldn't understand it.
Bai Chenzhu and Jiang Ye exchanged glances. Jiang Ye spoke first, "It's probably some kind of welcoming speech. It's alright, let's go in and take a look. There's probably no one inside."
Indeed, there was no one there. Recalling the deaths of those alien races, Bai Chenzhu nodded and called Tang Zhao over.
——
Outside is a pristine natural forest, but upon entering, one is greeted by highly advanced technological creations.
Rows upon rows of translucent 'cocoons' resemble 'beds'.
Bai Chenzhu's first thought was of the seats in human transportation. Perhaps these 'cocoons' were the seats in the alien race's transportation?
He walked over to the two-meter-tall 'cocoon', pressed it, and found it to be smooth, cold, and hard to the touch, empty inside, like a coffin.
With just a gentle touch, the lid rises, releasing a wisp of cool, ethereal white mist that has a hint of sweetness.
Bai Chenzhu yawned, realizing that the white mist had a hypnotic effect, and quickly pressed the lid back down.
Tang Zhao gripped the backpack straps tightly, looked outside and then inside, and muttered, "I don't know what to say for a moment. It feels like the inside really fits my stereotype of aircraft."
Jiang Ye, who was switching languages and checking records at the control panel, asked without turning his head, "What are you expecting?"
The door slammed shut as soon as the words were spoken, and a mechanical voice echoed around, "Welcome back! We have received a mandatory recall order from the main ship. We recommend that you return to port immediately. For any other operations, please enter the correct password."
Chinese? Bai Chenzhu didn't react immediately, turning her head slightly. "Huh?"
"Incorrect password! Incorrect password! Incorrect password!" A flashing red light appeared in the room, a heavy color that weighed heavily on people's hearts, with danger looming like a shadow.
Tang Zhao quickly covered his mouth. He looked over and rushed over to cover Bai Chenzhu's mouth as well.
Bai Chenzhu glanced at him helplessly and slapped his hand away.
Jiang Ye watched as the red symbol flashed in front of him and calmly said, "Cancel the return flight."
"Please verify permissions."
"Beep! Verification failed!"
"Please verify permissions."
Jiang Ye lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then raised his hand and pressed down repeatedly.
...
Bai Chenzhu's eyebrows twitched as he watched Jiang Ye frantically press the control panel, his fingers moving in a blur. He had a bad feeling, but he remained calm and observed the situation.
Does Jiang Ye really know the code to the alien spaceship? This seems absurd no matter how you look at it.
"Incorrect input!"
"Incorrect input!"
"More than three incorrect inputs have been made, and the spaceship's functions have been locked! We are executing a recall order for the main ship. Passengers, please take your seats and prepare for takeoff."
As the spaceship started, a slight feeling of weightlessness appeared, and Jiang Ye's expression changed.
Bai Chenzhu opened his mouth, about to speak, but the next second he saw Jiang Ye calm down, resting his chin on his hand and observing the screen. To be precise, he was looking at the electronic graph on the screen.
Bai Chenzhu followed his gaze and paused slightly when his eyes fell on the electronic chart.
It looks familiar.
Under the intense gazes from behind, in the deathly silence, Jiang Ye turned around nonchalantly, grinning, "What's wrong?"
This is the brief calm after the storm.
Tang Zhao and Bai Chenzhu belatedly realized that amidst a series of chaotic notification sounds, Jiang Ye, without their knowledge, had successfully sent them both to the enemy camp.
"Holy crap!" Tang Zhao belatedly realized they were on their way to an alien race. He crouched down, clutching his head, on the verge of tears. "Help! Brother Jiang, you must be an undercover agent! How did you end up leading us to the main camp?!"
Jiang Ye feigned nonchalance, "It's alright, we're not there yet."
"What's the difference between this and a suspended death sentence!" Tang Zhao exclaimed.
“Of course there are,” Jiang Ye said seriously. “We were courting death, and the suspended death sentence was forced upon us.”
Tang Zhao cursed and swore fiercely, "Why don't we just jump ship!"
Bai Chenzhu steadied himself by supporting himself on the 'cocoon'. He walked along the wall, which was entirely composed of electronic screens. He glanced at one of the lit screens, which displayed a large electronic map. The red dots representing them were flashing, while the green dots represented the alien race's stronghold.
This map looks familiar. Before Bai Chenzhu could study it carefully, the floor shook, followed by a chilling feeling of weightlessness.
Bai Chenzhu lost his balance and was about to fall backward, but was pulled back by someone.
"Hold on here." Jiang Ye patted the control panel.
Bai Chenzhu leaned against the edge of the control panel and said calmly, "This map looks a lot like Beiming City, which we are going to." He pointed to the location of the green dot.
"So isn't this just a coincidence?" Jiang Ye chuckled, clearly in a good mood. "It came so easily, without us even having to drive there ourselves."
"That's too much of a coincidence." Bai Chenzhu stared at Jiang Ye.
Jiang Ye nervously fiddled with his left and right fingers, then leaned over and whispered to Bai Chenzhu, "It really is a coincidence. I thought their passwords were the same."
His breath landed on her earlobe, warm and comforting. Bai Chenzhu turned her head away. "Hmm, blame them. How much longer until we arrive?"
Jiang Ye studied it for a while and said, "Four hours and fifty minutes."
Tang Zhao was stunned. "So fast?"
At their current car speed, and with mutants and superhumans blocking the way all over the streets, it would take them several days to travel from Luming Ancient City to Beiming City!
Jiang Ye's words had a double meaning: "After all, we're walking the path to heaven."
"It's over, we're really going to heaven this time." Tang Zhao stood up. "How many did we encounter last time? Fifty or sixty, I think. Now that 'main ship' thing, there will only be more of them, hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?! We look different, we can't even get by."
“You can rest assured about that,” Jiang Ye said. “They have dedicated ‘parking garages,’ so at least we won’t run into them immediately when we go out. In other words,”
Bai Chenzhu maliciously added, "A suspended death sentence."
Tang Zhao was infected by the two men's inexplicable calmness, or rather, he had become somewhat numb. He asked doubtfully, "Brother, you sound like you've been there before."
And it was the kind of way where you didn't go through the main gate.
Jiang Ye coughed softly, "How could that be!"
Tang Zhao nodded, "I knew it. We've always been working together. How could we not know if you were leaving, Brother Jiang?"
When he turned around and curiously touched everything, Bai Chenzhu asked Jiang Ye in a voice only the two of them could hear, "You really went there?"
Jiang Ye hesitated, "About six years after the apocalypse, a convoy transporting supplies disappeared near Fuyun City, and I led a group to investigate."
“Back then, I discovered that people—no, alien races—were capturing humans, so I boarded a similar spaceship…” Jiang Ye stroked his chin and said regretfully, “But I only wandered around the area near the gate. Seeing aliens was terrifying enough.”
I was so shocked that I wondered if I was hallucinating.
Because of this incident, although he was one of the first to discover the alien race, he fled in haste, and the alien race's base was like a hidden paradise. When he returned with his men the second time, they couldn't find it again, and he was once thought to have gone hysterical. He spent a lot of time proving the existence of the alien race and investigating their purpose.
If it weren't for this unexpected spaceship, finding this experimental base deep in the mountains would have been quite difficult.
"I see." Bai Chenzhu nodded, then thought of something else. "It's alright. You're already very capable for being able to leave safely."
In his eyes, Jiang Ye must have looked like a pathetic little thing when he ran away, otherwise he wouldn't have only remembered 'near Beiming City'.
The way he looked at Jiang Ye was different now; it was warm, like a ray of autumn sunshine, as if through him one could trace back to the past, to an era before he existed.
Jiang Ye's breath hitched slightly. He looked up at Bai Chenzhu, his eyes filled with complex emotions. Perhaps it was the first time he had ever felt such a tender gaze, and he was momentarily at a loss.
Bai Chenzhu, who was being stared at, couldn't possibly be unaware. He was puzzled for only two seconds before realizing what was going on and asked knowingly, "What's wrong?"
"Don't look at me like that, I..." Jiang Ye's dark eyes burned as he locked onto the person in front of him, moving closer and closer. Bai Chenzhu remained unmoved, like bait, watching him approach.
Tang Zhao glanced over and realized the two were already very close. He quickly covered his eyes, his fingers spread apart as he couldn't help but peek, saying, "Hey! I'm still here!"
Jiang Ye suddenly became mischievous, biting Bai Chenzhu's hair tie and pulling it down. Before Bai Chenzhu could react, the hair tie was snatched away by Jiang Ye, landing conspicuously between his white teeth.
"Stop fooling around." Bai Chenzhu smiled, hooked the hair tie back with one finger, and casually tied her hair into a ponytail.
"You sit at the children's table." Bai Chenzhu patted Jiang Ye's cheek, it was unclear whether she was speaking to Tang Zhao or Jiang Ye.
Jiang Ye couldn't help but laugh, reaching out to hug Bai Chenzhu's waist and affectionately nuzzling his cheek. "Don't worry, practice makes perfect, it won't be that bad."
Bai Chenzhu patted the back of his head and stroked his hair gently, "This time you're not fighting alone."
"Guys!" Tang Zhao clutched his heart, on the verge of tears. "Don't look like a pair of star-crossed lovers. How can a movie with three people only have two names!"
Jiang Ye squinted slightly, feeling quite comfortable being stroked, and chuckled upon hearing this, "You talk as if we've already done it right there."
Tang Zhao was stunned by his wild remarks. Then, thinking about it, he realized he didn't know Bai Chenzhu, but he felt this was something Jiang Ye was capable of doing. Tang Zhao cautiously asked, "You...are you really going to go this far?"
Bai Chenzhu patted Jiang Ye on the shoulder, "Alright, we still have some time. See what we have here that we can use, and take it all with us."
He glanced at the scenery flashing past the window. "It will probably be evening by the time we get there."
——
The spaceship was surprisingly spacious and clean, with only a giant control panel and neatly arranged cocoons underneath.
At a glance, you can see the entire spaceship.
Tang Zhao studied what the alien races ate and wondered if the things in those bags printed with strange characters were edible. Jiang Ye rummaged through the system trying to get a map of the main camp.
After a long time, he finally managed to find a rough map in the system. The main camp of the alien race was stacked layer upon layer, and the whole thing looked like a giant honeycomb.
Bai Chenzhu felt dizzy looking at the paper, his hand wandering over it without making a single dot for a long time. Just then, the pen in his hand was snatched away.
Jiang Ye pointed to the central layer with the tip of his pen and said, "It seems that this is the central layer of the nest, divided into three upper and three lower layers. The spaceship, which is the one we are currently on, will most likely enter from the top layer. After entering, we will proceed from the ventilation ducts downwards..."
His voice grew softer and softer until he finally frowned and fell silent.
Bai Chenzhu braced himself against the control panel with both hands and looked at Jiang Ye, "In that case, how do we find the fragments? Should we search layer by layer?"
Before he could finish speaking, Tang Zhao behind him suddenly started gagging.
"Tang Zhao!" Bai Chenzhu, with his long legs, rushed over to comfort him.
"What's going on?" He stared intently, snatched the thing Tang Zhao was chewing on from his hand. It was something hard and unidentifiable. He used it to smash the wall, but couldn't even scratch it off.
"Why are you eating other people's food?" Bai Chenzhu scolded him as she handed him a bottle of water.
"It's okay, you can eat it." Jiang Ye took the black cube from his hand and looked at it. "It works on a similar principle to concentrated biscuits, you won't die from it."
"No, no, no!" Tang Zhao spat twice after finishing his water. "I saw on the translator that it looked edible, so I tried some. Who knew it would be so bitter and astringent, even worse than Chinese medicine! Our concentrated biscuits aren't that terrible!"
Bai Chenzhu threatened him: "If you eat random things again, I'll make you eat two more bites of this as punishment."
Tang Zhao covered his mouth in horror.
Jiang Ye silently curled his lips in schadenfreude, then cleared his throat. "Alright, it's getting late. Let's eat something first before we continue our search."
Tang Zhao obediently opened his backpack, took out food and drinks, and wanted to have a spaceship feast.
"You guys eat first, I'm not hungry yet." Bai Chenzhu was thinking about his map. He returned to the control panel, brought up the 'honeycomb', put his hands on the panel, picked up a pen and paper and made a few simple strokes. The general structure of the 'honeycomb' appeared on the white paper.
"I need to write this down first; it will be useful later."
Tang Zhaogang had been listening to their conversation. He looked at this person and that person, and asked uncertainly, "So, is the 'last' fragment we're looking for in the central layer?"
Bai Chenzhu stopped drawing, and Jiang Ye looked at the person who had asked the question in surprise.
Tang Zhao scratched his head. "What's wrong?"
Jiang Ye, abandoning his usual carefree demeanor, snapped his fingers and said, "You've hit the nail on the head."
He blinked, picked up the black piece in his hand, and handed it to Tang Zhao. "This 'honeycomb' is huge. We might have to run through seven floors to find it. So, Tang, eat more if you're hungry. Your brothers won't fight you for it."
"Who wants to take this from you?!" Tang Zhao snapped.
Bai Chenzhu, his fingers flying across the keyboard, listened to their conversation and curled his lips into a smile. He stared at the three-dimensional 'honeycomb' structure, slightly lost in thought. Such a 'united' organization must have a leader inside; it couldn't possibly be a disorganized mess.
He had a good memory; he still remembered what that arrogant male insect had said in the grand theater—something about Lord Kula…
If we could just kill that 'Kula', would everything be over?
He had figured out the alien race's attack methods. Kula might also be a male insect. Male insects are weak in combat, but their mental power can influence a person's brain. If he could catch it when it was alone... Bai Chenzhu came back to his senses. He could hear Tang Zhao munching on food. He laughed at himself for being a bit presumptuous.
This is practically equivalent to assassinating a national leader single-handedly.
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