In the shroud of night, Qing Chen quickly scaled the low walls of two courtyards, maneuvering through the environment he knew best.
In an instant, the entire layout of Courtyard Four appeared in his mind like a three-dimensional image.
The autumn breeze was cool, carrying a slight dryness from the day.
The next moment, the young man silently calculated the frenzied speed of the other...
It wasn't enough. He needed to be faster!
Qing Chen felt his lungs burning, his blood boiling.
Suddenly, he came to a stop in a shadow at a corner.
And he held his breath.
The soughing of the sycamore leaves in the courtyard, the shadows of the leaves trembling on the ground.
The sound of footsteps not far away, the lights extinguished in countless homes.
None of it mattered now.
3.
2.
1.
Now was the moment.
The young man swung a trench shovel with all his might in the darkness, aiming it into the air beyond the corner.
With a thud, the middle-aged man sprinting around the corner was struck on the legs and tumbled forward!
Qing Chen didn't look back at the man; instead, he turned and quickly vanished into the shadows between the buildings, striking and fleeing.
Only after he had left did the middle-aged man's cries of agony echo throughout the neighborhood, lighting up countless windows. People looked out but could only see a criminal clutching his legs and wailing.
The middle-aged man's right leg was broken, bleeding profusely.
Slowly, many people gathered at their windows to watch, yet they could no longer see Qing Chen.
Even the criminal hadn't yet grasped what had just occurred.
By the time Qing Chen returned to Jiang Xue's home, he saw Li Tongyun shivering in her arms. Qing Chen asked, "Xiao Yun, are you hurt?"
"Just frightened, I'm calling the police now to handle them."
"No need, I've already called," Qing Chen said.
At the sound of his voice, Li Tongyun looked up with tears in her eyes and said, "Brother, there was one who got away."
"Don't worry, I found him," Qing Chen replied.
Only then did Jiang Xue notice the web of cracks in Qing Chen's hand from the trench shovel. She suddenly realized he must have encountered the criminals and even engaged in a direct confrontation.
However, as she examined Qing Chen, she found no other wounds besides his hand.
"You've injured your hand. Just wait, I'll get you some gauze and iodine," said Jiang Xue.
"After all, I'm just an ordinary person," Qing Chen said, looking down at his hand, inwardly lamenting that despite his brilliant mind, his body did not match.
He needed to accelerate his process of gaining abilities in the Inner World!
"Don't bother, Aunt Jiang Xue," Qing Chen said. "I have some at home."
By now, the neighbors had heard the commotion and came out. They hadn't dared to earlier, but now that the noise suggested all was clear.
Seeing more people gathering, Qing Chen quickly said, "The police will be here soon, I'm going back inside. Remember, I wasn't involved tonight."
Jiang Xue hesitated for a moment, "Okay."
...
The disorderly discussions from outside, the wailing of police sirens, and the bustling footsteps all seemed unable to affect Qing Chen anymore.
He lay in bed, deep in thought. The moment he swung that trench shovel felt like he was greeting a new chapter in his life.
Qing Chen had pursued the criminal partly because he couldn't bear to see a kid like Li Tongyun harmed.
On the other hand, he felt that if he lacked even this courage, then he had no business longing for a life in the Inner World.
He slowly drifted off to sleep until a series of knocks startled him awake.
Qing Chen, bleary-eyed, opened the door and was surprised to see Li Tongyun standing outside.
"Brother Qing Chen, can you come to my house for a bit?" Li Tongyun timidly asked.
"What's wrong?" Qing Chen wondered.
"Please help my mom," Li Tongyun said urgently.
Qing Chen went upstairs, but saw Jiang Xue sitting helplessly by the dining table, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
"Are you hurt?" Qing Chen asked.
"No, it's not an injury," Jiang Xue replied, "… it's that the mechanical limbs have run out of energy."
This truly stunned Qing Chen; he had never really considered the operating mechanism of mechanical limbs, assuming it involved some sort of advanced technology from the Inner World, like hidden antimatter reactors or something.
It turned out that Jiang Xue's overuse of the mechanical limbs the previous day had led them to become completely inoperative.
Simply put, they had run out of power...
"Wait, their durability is that poor?" Qing Chen puzzled, "How do people in the Inner World handle high-intensity battles?"
Jiang Xue explained, "You haven't been there, so you wouldn't know, but the entire Inner World has already upgraded to wireless charging. You can see nuclear reactor condensation towers at the city edges, and all the electricity they generate is distributed to the entire city via 'Yun Liu Towers' located throughout."
"In the Inner World, whether it's vehicles, communication devices, mechanical limbs, rice cookers, or lights, 90% of the electronic devices have abandoned wired connections. The network is the same; it's like there's a giant WIFI covering the entire city."
"Everyone has their own payment sequence number, just like an ID number. As long as you pay monthly, you can enjoy a convenient life. Consortiums charge based on each individual's power usage."
"City 18 has about three hundred Yun Liu Towers operating at full capacity, so the concept of 'charging' doesn't exist there anymore, because everyone's devices are constantly being charged."
Wireless charging? Qing Chen was curious; wasn't this the dream of the scientist Nikola Tesla?
At this moment, Qing Chen's nerd identity came into play, and he quickly analyzed the situation.
Charging fundamentally involves the transfer of energy. In fact, the Outer World also has such technology, as illustrated by Xiaomi's new product, which can charge devices wirelessly across an entire room.
Xiaomi can achieve wireless charging because of breakthroughs in rectifying technology and positioning technology, accurately capturing millimeter waves emitted by the charger.
Among these technologies, positioning is the most crucial; without it, the charger would just spread spherical waves instead of directing them precisely into a phone.
In short, without positioning, the charger would just be an open "microwave oven."
That would be terrifying.
And the technology in the Inner World must be different from that in the Outer World, having no doubt broken through numerous technological levels.
Would this be harmful to the human body? The answer is trivial because the radiation it emits is even less than that from a cellphone.
As long as the positioning technology is advanced enough, there should be no effects.
Of course, Qing Chen hadn't specifically studied the transmission principles of the Inner World, so he wasn't sure if they had achieved Tesla's dream or something similar to the current wireless charging technology in the Outer World.
However, being able to achieve comprehensive wireless charging was still quite novel.
At this time, Li Tongyun suddenly asked, "So, does this wireless charging emit radiation? Just last month, both an old man and an old woman from the next community forced the carrier to remove a cell tower because of it. Wouldn't the radiation from this be even greater?"
Jiang Xue hadn't thought much about it before, but following Li Tongyun's comment, she also became worried. She asked, "So many social media accounts claim that even cellphone radiation is very harmful to people; won't Yun Liu Towers affect our health?"
Indeed, too many social media accounts were spreading information about the dangers of radiation.
Many people had actually believed them and had even had many carriers' base stations and cell towers removed...
After thinking about it, Qing Chen said, "I guess the amount of radiation varies from person to person."
"What do you mean?" Li Tongyun was confused.
Thinking further, Qing Chen said, "The lower the education, the greater the radiation."
Li Tongyun: "???"
Jiang Xue: "???"
…
Thank you to fellow author Xie Ri Guai for becoming the Alliance Hierarch of this book, a boss as vast as the eastern seas and long-lived as the southern mountains!
Also, are there any other bosses who wish to receive my blessing for a long and healthy life?