Chapter 51: The Eve of the Plan

The surrounding clamor paused for a brief instant, as the captain of the security squad hesitated noticeably. He turned and looked at Ye Mi, then suddenly stepped forward. His expression remained unchanged, but his voice dropped: “Four hundred eighty thousand. The Gray Fox Gang will take it all. What do you say?”

Ye Mi raised her eyebrows and asked directly, “Does the Gray Fox Gang need energy crystals that badly?”

“That’s not your concern. Are you selling or not? With the purity of your energy crystals, it’ll be hard to find a buyer quickly.”

Though the captain’s words were blunt, Ye Mi knew he spoke the truth. Despite the fact that anything could be bought or sold in the black market of the human camp—including energy crystals, which were not particularly rare—most people here couldn’t just hand over a million credits for two crystals at once.

Even buyers with fifty thousand to spare were few and far between.

Ye Mi might waste some time waiting for a buyer—at least two or three days. Now, with a ready buyer before her, she considered briefly, then nodded. “Deal.”

The Gray Fox Gang acted quickly. Soon enough, money and goods exchanged hands, and Ye Mi pocketed nine hundred sixty thousand credits.

She felt much more at ease.

Immediately, she headed to the Camp Home and, using Gina’s data chip, booked a VIP room for a week. The sixty thousand credits spent barely made her blink.

Back when she worked herself to the bone at the company, she could never have saved this much, no matter how hard she tried.

The following day, Ye Mi bought some essentials in the black market, didn’t linger, and swiftly left the human camp.

As she departed, she glanced at the date: [2082.06.05].

At ten-thirty in the morning, Ye Mi left the ring of tents beyond the human camp. She looked up—the sky was shrouded in heavy, gray clouds, so low it seemed they might collapse at any moment.

She exhaled deeply. Once she had left the camp’s range, she immediately strode toward the direction of Edge City.

Twisted light curtains appeared in her field of vision; she had reached the boundary of the Light Ruins.

Ye Mi checked the map. If she exited through Gate 3 at the Light Ruins boundary, about three kilometers further lay the headquarters of the Defense Bureau—the location of her true self.

But she didn’t head that way.

Instead, she found a desolate spot and, after leaving the Light Ruins’ perimeter, pressed deeper into Edge City.

Since the Light Ruins had expanded, its range was too vast for OC Corporation to monitor or bother with who entered or exited. Ye Mi encountered no obstacles along the way.

If anything, she felt a heaviness settle over her.

Perhaps it was leaving the Light Ruins. Without the energy supply, Gina’s body seemed ill-suited to the environment, as if every pore in her skin was blocked, causing intense discomfort.

Ye Mi knew this was a ‘side effect’ of exiting the Light Ruins after venturing deep inside.

Gina’s body had entered Zone Two, but not deeply, and her abilities were only D-level. So after leaving the Light Ruins, she didn’t experience mutation right away.

But as time passed, her body would become increasingly unadapted, until, after seven days, the reckoning would come—death by mutation.

Still, humanity had devised coping strategies after so many years of the Light Ruins’ presence.

In Ye Mi’s backpack was an essential item she’d bought from the black market—a Light Ruins Energy Atomizer.

Its principle was similar to oxygen machines used in medicine, except it replaced oxygen with energy from the Light Ruins, allowing those with abilities to avoid some side effects for a short period after leaving the Ruins.

Of course, that’s all it did.

The atomizer couldn’t extend the seven-day reckoning, and over time it would require ever more energy crystals from the Light Ruins as fuel. The crystal she had, at ninety percent purity, would last only nine hours.

She needed to make preparations quickly.

Putting on the atomizer’s mask, Ye Mi crossed the barren wasteland. The outline of Edge City gradually appeared before her.

Towering steel skyscrapers, flickering holographic ads, maglev trains racing along tracks—all familiar yet strange.

She stood at the city’s outskirts, squinting at the cold cybernetic metropolis. A strange feeling rose up inside her, as if she’d returned from another world.

After spending so much time in the wild freedom of the Light Ruins, getting used to its surreal, post-apocalyptic atmosphere, seeing Edge City’s cybernetic scenery felt unreal.

On one side, there was cruel freedom—humanity living on the edge of survival. On the other, bustling sophistication—humans living like puppets on strings.

Ye Mi curled her lips in mockery, laughing to herself. Neither side offered the life of a real human.

Without further thought, Ye Mi slipped into the crowd from the outskirts, hailed a self-driving taxi with practiced ease, and headed for the R&K Arcade in the Western District.

She was going to the black market to buy an identity chip.

This was an old tradition in Edge City: many wanted criminals or people with nowhere to turn could pay for fake identity chips, swap them into the operating system, and thereby evade OC Corporation’s searches—a necessity for assassins and hackers alike.

Ye Mi needed one to enter the human camp. She would never allow her true biological data to appear in any faction’s database.

Even knowing the Gray Fox Gang and OC Corporation were bitter enemies, Ye Mi wouldn’t take that risk.

A wise rabbit has three burrows.

Edge City had many black market trading spots. The one Ye Mi chose was hidden beneath the arcade, deep in the underground network city. Extremely secretive, it was one of the least-known trading centers.

She knew of it only because a former colleague, who’d been fired from the company, ended up here trading in human organs. After Ye Mi lost her sight, she’d come here seeking help from him.

Thinking of those days, Ye Mi’s gaze unconsciously dimmed.

No money, no goods, no way to save her body—watching herself become crippled, losing all hope.

That was a life she never wanted to live again.

“Trip complete. Thank you for choosing Dewey Intelligent Transport. Wishing you a pleasant day.”

Soon, the taxi’s AI spoke—a gentle, mechanical voice reminding Ye Mi she had arrived.

Dewey Intelligent Transport: a subsidiary of OC Corporation, monopolizing the construction and transit industries.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard that name…” Ye Mi muttered, swiftly jumping out of the taxi.

Neon lights flashed at the arcade entrance. A few scantily clad virtual idols gyrated in holographic projections, deafening electronic music blaring from within.

Ye Mi ignored the chaos at the door and walked straight in.