Time seemed to stand still.
Shi Lei's breath caught in his throat. His large, bell-like eyes were fixed on the small metal nut suspended in mid-air, staring so hard they seemed ready to pop from their sockets. He even reached out a trembling hand and cautiously waved it underneath the nut.
No threads, no magnetic device, nothing.
The nut just floated there, quietly and steadily, violating every piece of knowledge he had accumulated about the world over sixteen years.
"This... this..." His Adam's apple bobbed, his lips quivered, but he couldn't form a complete word. "Is this... a magic trick?"
Ling Feng smiled slightly. With a thought, the nut, like a hummingbird receiving a command, flew lightly upwards. It then traced a smooth arc, circled Shi Lei's head, and finally, with a soft click, landed precisely back in its original spot on the workbench.
Shi Lei's body turned stiffly, following the nut's trajectory.
The moment the nut landed, it was as if all the strength had been drained from his body. He collapsed to the floor with a thud.
The expression on his face could no longer be described as mere shock. It was a mixture of awe, confusion, and a sliver of deep, genuine... fear.
"Feng..." he looked up at his friend, his voice hoarse. "What... what have you become?"
Ling Feng's smile faded. He walked over and pulled him up from the floor.
"I haven't become anything else," Ling Feng's voice was calm and strong. "I just... found my true self."
He selectively recounted his experiences in the Sea of Scrap. He didn't mention "The Echo" or the mysterious Data Ark—that was his deepest secret. He simply told Shi Lei that under the pressure of a life-and-death situation, he had fully "awakened" his innate spiritual energy and had found some ancient records in a hidden place that detailed how to cultivate and control this power.
"Spiritual energy..." Shi Lei murmured the words. To him, this term had always been a legend from the upper districts, as distant as a myth from another world. And now, the myth was standing right in front of him.
He looked into Ling Feng's deep, confident eyes, and the fear in his heart gradually subsided, replaced by an irrepressible, searing excitement.
He wasn't afraid.
He was... thrilled!
"So..." Shi Lei's breathing quickened. "The things those guys from the upper districts can do, you can do them too? Maybe... even better than them?"
"I don't know how strong they are," Ling Feng said. "But I know we don't have to play by their rules anymore."
He walked over to the oilcloth with the simple map of the Rust Belt and picked up a marker.
"Look," he pointed to several marked areas on the map. "Why can the Iron Fist Gang run rampant here? Because they control eighty percent of the resource channels in the Rust Belt. All the energy lattices, food, and medicine flowing in from the outside have to pass through their hands. They're like parasites, sucking the blood of every one of us."
"Before, we couldn't fight back because they had more people and weapons, and we only had our two hands."
Ling Feng looked up at Shi Lei, his eyes flashing with wisdom and a sharp glint.
"But now, I have a pair of... eyes that can see through walls."
He reached out and tapped a location on the map marked "Scrap Relay Station No. 3."
"Shi Lei, are you familiar with this place?"
"Of course!" Shi Lei was instantly energized; this was his area of expertise. "That's the Iron Fist Gang's biggest warehouse! At least half of the supplies they scavenge from the outside are hoarded there! The place is heavily guarded. I heard that Buck's most capable deputy, 'Brute Bull,' personally watches over it!"
"No matter how heavily guarded, it can't block my 'eyes.'" Ling Feng's tone was full of confidence. "Shi Lei, I need you. I can 'see' the layout inside, the number of personnel, their weapon configurations, and I can even sense their shift patterns. And you, you need to use your knowledge of this place to help me create... the perfect plan for infiltration and sabotage."
Shi Lei's heart pounded wildly.
He finally understood what Ling Feng was planning to do.
He wasn't going to run, and he wasn't going to hide.
He was going to... declare war on the Iron Fist Gang!
He was going to carve a huge chunk of flesh from the beast's fattest part!
A rush of hot blood surged to Shi Lei's head.
All the oppression he had endured, all the humiliation he had swallowed over the past sixteen years, in this moment, transformed into boundless fighting spirit.
"Damn it!" Shi Lei slammed a fist against his own chest, making the fat on his body jiggle. "Let's do it! I've been wanting to take down that 'Brute Bull' for a long time!"
Ling Feng smiled.
He knew that his one and only, most trustworthy partner was now in step with him.
He opened the thick notebook to a blank page. Based on the long-distance mental scan he had performed on Relay Station No. 3 on his way back, he quickly and accurately drew the entire internal structure of the warehouse, the guards' patrol routes, and even marked out several of the weakest surveillance blind spots.
Looking at the impossibly detailed defense layout, which was nothing short of a miracle, Shi Lei completely abandoned the last trace of doubt in his heart.
He knew that from this day forward, the sky over the Rust Belt was about to change.
And he and Ling Feng would no longer be specks of dust, drifting along in this cruel world.
They were going to be the ones who rewrote the rules of the game.