Chapter 84 The Unspoken Rules Outside the Wall

After finding the Dark Spirit Stone, Lu Luo began a thorough sweep of the apartment building. It seemed that because the Broodmother occupied this place, there were no other Exotic Species in the entire apartment building. It took Lu Luo half a day to search the area, and except for that Dark Spirit Stone, he had no energy harvest whatsoever. One might say that Lu Luo had simply wasted half a day eliminating a wrong answer. The only consolation was that he found some Corrosive Items with the help of the Observer. But could he afford not to check? Of course not; not checking at all is completely different from checking and finding nothing. This place was near his temporary base, after all. If there were other Exotic Species like the Broodmother, it would be a huge hidden danger. Lu Luo remembered a small story from his previous life, a story that had made a deep impression on him. A went to see a doctor, and for 200 bucks, six diseases were diagnosed! A felt like he had struck gold. B went to see a doctor, and for 200 bucks, nothing was found. B felt like he had lost a fortune. As for C, he didn’t go to the hospital for a check-up, didn’t spend money, and had no diseases, feeling like he had made a killing. So, who really profited in the end? Lu Luo thought that both A and B had actually profited; at least they were clear about their conditions. As for C, he was just a portrayal of a man struggling on the home front in his previous life. After checking an entire building, Lu Luo lit a cigarette on the rooftop, took a look at it, and finally decided not to smoke. He placed the cigarette on the rooftop and walked down. "Downstairs, switch to another building!" Next to the apartment building was an office tower named Mo Feng Building. It was a very tall construction and should be considered the tallest building in the area, aside from the bell tower. This place looks good; I hope there are Second Tier species here. A Constitution of 11, plus a bulletproof vest, plus the effect of perseverance, and the prompts from the Observer, made Lu Luo more than capable of traversing this district. Even Second Tier Exotic Species would not be a particularly difficult problem for him. Lu Luo, with anticipation for energy and Sequence Value, plunged into the building, beginning the second day of a joyful harvest. ... As the sun rose and set, another day passed. In the depths of C-13, the team from Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals, after a journey of two days and two nights, finally arrived close to their target location—the edge of the shattered stone wasteland. Ahead was the high-risk area of C-13, the Mother and Child Swamp, named after the Fifth Tier Exotic Species, the Broodwater Lemon. Of course, it was now February. The hibernation of Broodwater Lemons generally ends at the end of February, so for the moment, they would not encounter any. However, even with the Broodwater Lemons still in hibernation, the swamp remained extremely dangerous. Apart from high-level Lords like the Broodwater Lemons, there were many other species in the swamp, including Third Tier Exotic Species. Since Broodwater Lemons do not allow Fourth Tier Exotic Species in their territory, aside from themselves as Fifth Tier species, the highest would be Third Tier Exotic Species. The purpose of the Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals team’s mission was the byproduct of a First Tier Exotic Species—the blood sacs of the Rainbow Blood Mosquitoes. Although the Rainbow Blood Mosquitoes were only First Tier, their blood sacs possessed high medicinal value and were an important ingredient in Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals’ Little Red Bottle series. These Exotic Species were not strong fighters, and they lived in large groups, making them fairly easy to deal with. Taken on their own, for a well-equipped, experienced team like Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals’, the Rainbow Blood Mosquitoes posed almost no challenge. However, there was one critical point to consider—they were symbiotic Exotic Species with the Third Tier swamp-dwelling Ghost Crabs. Ghost Crabs are very fond of the feces of Rainbow Blood Mosquitoes, and the two species inevitably live together. Therefore, once a large number of Rainbow Blood Mosquito nests are discovered, the Ghost Crabs must be nearby. In other words, the Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals team would have to kill at least one Third Tier Ghost Crab. The Ghost Crabs are very powerful, and combined with the inherent dangers of the Mother and Child Swamp, their mission carried an extremely high risk. Before entering the Mother and Child Swamp, the team set up camp one kilometer away from the swamp to make their final preparations. At that moment, in Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals’ camp, some unspeakable things were happening. Heavy breathing, shaking tents, and relentless moaning. All indicated what had happened here. Members of Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals’ squad knew what kind of dangers and monsters they would face tomorrow. So today was their last chance to indulge, with a dozen men and several women mingling together to release their desires. In Captain Wu Sen’s tent, Chu Qi pressed a knife against her neck, her only means of resistance and her final defiance. In the past, she had been a talented protege of Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals, never so powerless as to be unable to protect her own safety and body. But everything had changed since that night. Song Hana targeted her explicitly, claiming it was because Chu Qi had helped Lu Luo and the other two, harming the company’s interests. But Chu Qi knew that even if Gu Fangyi hadn’t led the refusal of the contract, even if Lu Luo hadn’t killed Red Shell, her situation would be no different. Because Song Hana felt threatened by her status, Chu Qi’s rapid growth was something Song Hana wouldn’t allow; she had to be suppressed. After that night, Song Hana slandered Chu Qi to the higher-ups of Lan Tian Group, cutting off Chu Qi’s resources. Then she arranged for other corrupt colleagues to ostracize Chu Qi. Even Wang Zheng, a classmate for many years, did not stand by her side. For more than a month, Chu Qi had been like a small sailboat in a storm, at any moment at risk of being engulfed by Lan Tian’s huge waves. A genius? To a behemoth like Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals, what did a genius count for? If wasted, then wasted. There were more in the orphanage. She often thought of Lu Luo, Gu Fangyi, and the others. Perhaps they were right. Leaving Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals was the correct choice. But Chu Qi was not someone who would resign herself to fate. She was a complex person: stubborn, scheming, aware. She was not content with a quiet corner of safety and yet lacked the power to change her current situation. She had her own ideas and always insisted on acting according to those ideas, including protecting her body. Or, using a word often heard in the Wasteland but somewhat luxurious: ideals. Her ideal was to become a great Transcendent. Chu Qi’s ideals had never been shattered. She still persisted, still maintained her true self. She felt her body should not be given up in such a place, to such trash. She deserved better opportunities, a bigger stage. But now she had too much to face. She needed... allies! If she could just get through this, she would have a chance to turn things around. As Wu Sen approached, Chu Qi remained silent, but the knife pressed against her neck sank a bit deeper, drawing blood. Wu Sen’s expression turned ugly. Chu Qi’s lack of cooperation frustrated him immensely. "Is this amusing to you? It’s common practice to relieve stress before an operation." "And this is beyond the wall. You’ve been outside the wall before. You don’t actually think the law matters, do you, Chu Qi?" Though he spoke thus, he wasn’t about to kill a team member with skilled combat abilities over a whim. At least, not until the mission was completed. So, he tried to sway Chu Qi with words. But Chu Qi remained unmoved. "No need, Captain Wu Sen. Relieving stress doesn’t require disgusting acts." "Hmph, naive." Wu Sen left, and Chu Qi let the knife fall listlessly. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold out. She knew all this was arranged by Song Hana, a deliberate attempt to break her. But she was utterly without means to resist. Chu Qi was different from Lu Luo and the others. Each of the big companies in the Wasteland was a source of rules, a god of contracts. How could one easily escape such contracts? Moreover, her contract wasn’t for 250,000, but 2,250,000—a colossal figure, legally binding by Alliance law. So Chu Qi knew when this mission was over, that would be her end. Forget it, take it one step at a time! I still have guns and knives. The next morning, the squad from Blue Sky Pharmaceuticals had already entered the Mother and Child Swamp for exploration, and Chu Qi was placed at the very front of the team. She knew this was Wu Sen’s revenge, but she raised no objections. As a Transcendent, she wouldn’t retreat from this. With composure, Chu Qi stepped into the dark Mother and Child Swamp.