Starting as a Wallfacer, his defection to the Three-Body Problem shocked the world.

Chapter 294 One Dares to Ask, One Dares to Speak

If Lin Xuan could extract his own shock value, then Liu Qian, the operator at headquarters, could definitely give him a lot.

He initially thought that it was already excessive for the other party to make them wait for three or four minutes at most, but when a full ten minutes had passed and there was still no response from headquarters, Lin Xuan and the others realized the seriousness of the situation.

"Wait, where is this girl?"

Lin Qi glanced at the time, and as if he had thought of something, he turned the communication knob on the base station again, connecting the connection channel to another operator.

"Please transfer me to operator Liu Qian."

"Hold on……"

"Sir, operator Liu Qian is on her lunch break. If you need to contact her, please call headquarters again at 4 PM. Would you like me to leave a message for you?"

"Grass!"

Although they already knew that the operators at headquarters were incredibly inefficient, the level of inefficiency still truly shocked Lin Xuan and her team.

While they were still carrying out their mission of infiltration behind enemy lines, they were already having lunch. It's true that when the battlefield is tense, the logistics are also in full swing.

Are you a glutton turned genius?

Will you starve to death if you skip this little bit of food?

Lin Xuan said nothing, but silently took out a small notebook and wrote down the plan to clean up the corrupt rule of the Sanben family.

And on this line is the cleanup of Enwan Technology.

The Sanben family probably never dreamed that the person who got them on Lin Xuan's little notebook was actually a switchboard operator from headquarters.

If you mess with Lin Xuan, you've kicked the King of Hell!

"So what do we do now? The mission orders from headquarters haven't come through yet. We can't just sit here and wait for that woman to finish her afternoon nap, can we?"

Everyone's attention turned to Lin Xuan, the team leader, since he was the only one who had the final say here.

Lin Xuan smiled.

"Isn't it good that we weren't given any mission orders?"

"Since headquarters hasn't given us any orders, doesn't that mean we can do whatever we want?"

"This is my specialty."

Upon hearing this, everyone fell silent.

Is he a genius?

Not being given any tasks means you're free to do whatever you want.

This level of comprehension is truly top-notch.

"Let's go see what's going on with the riots ahead, otherwise we won't be able to see them after they've finished fighting."

As Lin Xuan spoke, he slung his gear over his shoulder and headed toward the city that was ablaze in the distance. If he were carrying a small flag, people would mistake him for a tour guide.

Dude, we're on the battlefield right now, can you be serious? We're not here for a vacation. If we don't get there soon, they'll be finished.

However, Lin Xuan's words did indeed pique the curiosity of the group.

Who could resist witnessing a riot where people confront the government?

This gene of enjoying watching a spectacle and not being afraid of things getting out of hand is ingrained in every one of them.

The place where Lin Xuan landed her spaceship was quite a distance from the city, and it would be very difficult to walk there on foot.

However, the dispersed nanobots quickly received a response.

"I found a ride with an old man who was delivering agricultural products to the city in an airship."

Lin Xuan led everyone on a frantic run, and after traveling a kilometer, they finally spotted a dilapidated airship.

The ship's hull has been modified. In order to accommodate more cargo, all the seats in the middle have been removed, leaving only the driver's and co-driver's seats.

The boat was piled high with all sorts of vegetables, some even still covered in soil, clearly freshly pulled from the ground.

"Sir, what's wrong with you...?"

Lin Xuan stepped forward and asked the question knowing the answer already.

The old man wasn't shy at all; when he heard the questions from the group, he answered with a smile.

“I grew some vegetables myself, but I couldn’t sell them in the countryside. I was thinking of going to the city to catch the early market, but it’s too far away. I’ll leave tonight and I can catch it tomorrow morning.”

Sure enough, no matter how advanced technology becomes, rural areas will never disappear. Even though technology has advanced to the point where vegetables can go from sprouting to ripening in a single day, people still prefer to eat the pure, natural products from the village.

However, the fact that the old man was still running into the city at this time clearly shows that he was unaware of the riots in the city. This means that the riots in the city have not lasted long and have only just begun a few hours ago.

Lin Xuan felt his pocket, took out a gold coin he had swindled from the Divine Realm, and stuffed it into the old man's hand.

"Sir, we brothers are unfamiliar with this place and would like to hitch a ride with you to the city, what do you think..."

The old man had never seen anything like this before, and he was so frightened that he waved his hands repeatedly.

"Hey, young man, this won't do! If you're going to the city, I'll give you a ride, but you don't need to pay me. This is too much!"

Lin Xuan didn't stand on ceremony. It wasn't that he didn't want to give the old man money, but rather that he and his companions had left in a hurry and all the money they had was from the Mind Earth, and they hadn't had time to exchange it for some cash from the Mechanical Civilization.

What? You're asking why paper money hasn't been phased out even though we've reached Type III civilization?

That's because paper money is the hardest to trace. Both governments and underground gangs like to use paper money to launder their dirty money.

As long as gray industries exist in this world, paper money will always be useful.

……

After the group boarded the boat, the old man leisurely started the lever and began to sway gently towards the city.

Bored on the way, the old man suddenly started chatting with a few people.

"By the way, young men, I haven't asked you yet. What do you do for a living, and what are you planning to do in the city?"

"Oh, we're spies from Mind Earth, here to carry out sabotage missions behind enemy lines in the city."

As soon as Lin Xuan said this, almost everyone present, except for the old man, focused their attention on him.

Shock level from Lynch +22!

Shock level from Zuo Xiao +22!

Shock level from Su Zilin +22!

……

Dude, you two are really something, one dares to ask and the other dares to say!

Is it something you can just say you're here to be a spy?

Are you really not afraid, or are you a tiger?

But judging from Lin Xuan's completely unconcerned expression, she seemed not to care at all about revealing the purpose of their trip.

"Hahaha, you little rascal."

Upon hearing Lin Xuan's words, the old man not only wasn't afraid, but actually laughed.

"How old are you all? Why are you making fun of an old man like me? If you're spies from Mind Earth, then I'm still the president of Enwan Technology."

"It's true, sir. We really are spies from Mind Earth. Why won't you believe me when I tell you the truth?"

Lin Xuan looked very serious.

"Alright, alright, if you don't want to talk about it, I won't ask anymore. But since it seems to be your first time in the city, I still have to remind you that the city is not like the countryside. You can't just go anywhere."

“There are some areas in the city where, if you don’t have the corresponding identification, you might not be able to get out.”

"Is that so?"

Lin Xuan was a little curious. The information that Number Three had given her did mention that some urban areas of Mechanical Earth could not be easily entered, but it did not explain why.

"I know this."

Ding Cunxu, a veteran who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up.

"The taxes on Mechanical Earth are collected in segments and by districts, which leads to a severe polarization between the rich and the poor in their cities. This is not so obvious in the countryside, but it is much more obvious in the city."

"Therefore, in order to distinguish the differences between social classes, there are toll booths at the entrances and exits of different areas in the city. You need to pay a fee in advance to enter, and you have to pay another fee when you leave."

“The young masters are kind-hearted and cannot bear to see the poor suffer, so they want to separate the poor out of the city, which will also reduce the pressure on municipal governance.”

“Generally speaking, a trip to a wealthy area can cost a poor person their life savings. In some areas, money alone is not enough; you also have to wear appropriate clothing. These measures are all to prevent poor people from entering wealthy areas because they find them dirty and an eyesore.”

Upon hearing this, Su Zilin couldn't help but spit.

"When these capitalist dogs are sucking blood from people, why don't they look down on the filth of those living at the bottom of society?"

The most tragic thing is that mechanical Earth society no longer shys away from distinguishing between poor and rich areas.

Because they no longer care that the lower classes will unite and rise up in resistance. Before the invention of cybernetic technology, ordinary people still had a chance to defeat them, but the gap in cybernetic technology has become so large that it is comparable to an army. How easy is it for ordinary people to turn their lives around and change their exploited fate?

Soon, the surrounding area was no longer an endless expanse of mountains and fields, but a few scattered buildings appeared, indicating that they were not far from entering the city.

Revelation 3 is a new administrative planet that Mechanical Earth established on the Chapel Front in recent years, and some of its basic infrastructure is not yet fully developed.

If they came from the central planet of a mechanical Earth, you would hardly even see any non-urban parts of that planet.

Just like in Faxuan City on Mind Earth, where you can see psychic monuments erected to pray for advanced civilizations every few hundred meters, these are not so common on border planets.

"Grandpa, please drop us off here. You can also sell me your vegetables at a discount."

Upon arriving at the destination, Lin Xuan disembarked and slipped the gold coin into the old man's hand.

Further ahead, we entered the combat zone.

He considered himself not a good person, but since he knew there was danger ahead, he couldn't let the old man who brought them here die here.

The old man didn't say anything. He wasn't stupid; he had also seen the firelight in the city in the distance.

"Then you should be careful."

After giving a few words of advice, the old man sailed away, leaving the thirteenth squad behind.

"Let's go."

Lin Xuan narrowed the nanobot's exploration range to directly in front of them, and with him leading the way, the group quickly arrived at the checkpoint at the entrance to the city.

"Dong dong."

Lin Xuan stepped forward and knocked on the broken glass, only to find that the guard post was already empty.

"The glass shattered in a very scattered manner, making it look like it was smashed open from a distance with a hard object."

The veteran walked over with a cigarette in his mouth. He was very experienced in these matters and saw through the deception at a glance.

"Even the checkpoints at the entrance to the city have been smashed. It seems that many people who don't belong to this city have infiltrated the riots."

"Hold on!"

Lin Xuan closed her eyes and mentally organized the map information detected by the nanorobots.

“There are slums on the outskirts of this city. They must have taken advantage of the chaos in the city to smash the checkpoints and break into the city.”

"So, the riots didn't start from the outside, but from inside the city?"

"It should be."

Ignoring everything else, Lin Qi controlled his prosthetic lower body, moved into the smashed guard post, and connected to the device using his neural interface.

“OK, that makes things easier. I’ve hacked into the city’s population registration system and gotten us a legal identity in the city. That will make it much easier to get into the city later.”

As soon as Lin Qi said this, Lin Xuan noticed that the expressions of the others had clearly changed.

"what happened?"

Lin Xuan looked at Su Zilin; her expression changed the most among them.

"Captain Bai... how should I put it, Lin Qi, you'll find out when you get into the city."

Upon hearing this, Lin Xuan frowned, somewhat puzzled as to why these people were being so secretive.

Even the usually composed veteran Ding Cunxu had an indescribable sense of helplessness on his face at this moment.

However, Lin Xuan soon realized why these people had that expression.

"Identity verification successful: Name: Bai Bing, Occupation: Male bar model, ID number: 341..."

When Lin Xuan heard the machine in front of her solemnly read out her identity information, her face instantly turned as black as the bottom of a pot.

"Lin Qi, you're really something!"

Of course, Lin Qi did this intentionally, because the information about the other people wasn't much better.

Ding Cunxu: Garbage collector...

"Su Zilin: Red Star Orphanage..."

"Zuo Xiao: Songstress..."

"Lynch: A sports champion..."

The identities of the individuals were increasingly abstract, especially Lin Qi's own. Everyone fell silent as they looked at his legs, which he could barely move thanks to his prosthetics.

"An athlete? What a ridiculous joke..."

The last time I heard such a hellish joke was when an airline was planning to print the image of a basketball superstar who died in a plane crash on one of their planes.

However, Lin Qi himself didn't seem to care.

"Stop being so picky, okay? Don't you know how difficult it is to fabricate an identity? The people I found are all existing missing persons. Their identity information can be used directly with a few minor modifications. Isn't that much easier than making up a completely non-existent person?"

"So you mean all this identity information we're using belongs to a bunch of dead people?"

"correct."

Everyone fell silent again.

"Alright, let's go into the city."

Although they were somewhat speechless, everyone knew that getting into the city was the most important thing right now.

With nanobots leading the way, Lin Xuan and her group managed to avoid most of the patrolling police and head straight for the scene of the riot.