Big Data Cultivation

Chapter 2535: Chapter 2527: Truly Exposed

Feng Jun and Yi Jue listened to the radio for a while but didn’t get the information they wanted.

He was about to say they should try a few more channels when Yi Jue spoke up, "I’ll go ask Ren Tu True Sage."

Her figure flickered and vanished, and the Big Boss couldn’t help commenting, "Looks like having high Cultivation Level really is better—you don’t have to sit here glued to a radio."

Feng Jun’s face went dark, and in the end he could only shake his head helplessly, "At my age, my Cultivation Level is already not low. If you keep talking like that, it’ll mess up my Dao heart... you get that?"

"I’m not trying to needle you," the Big Boss said irritably. "I’m reminiscing about when I was powerful!"

Two weaklings lamenting their fate? Feng Jun sent the Big Boss a thought, "Can you sense He Runxian’s condition?"

The Big Boss probed for a moment and replied, "He’s technically free. He’s still under limited surveillance, though. But in his subconscious, he keeps thinking about you, because... the Energy Blocks in the production base are running low."

That’s already ’running low’? Feng Jun frowned. "I left him several million tons."

"Who knows?" the Big Boss said. "Stop talking, let me listen a bit more..."

After a while, the Big Boss suddenly chuckled. "Heh, this time they’re in trouble. The bugs have issued a total offensive order—take this star system at any cost..."

While He Runxian was under soft detention, a lot of Energy Blocks were siphoned out of the production base. Besides the military, the local government mansion also helped itself. He Runxian objected, but He Huiqing couldn’t let him act recklessly and still tried to bleed as much as needed to keep the peace.

The production base had also taken on military-production contracts, consuming a lot of Energy Blocks. When the Insect Race ramped up its offensive, the base held out for a few days, then realized the Energy Stones were being burned through too fast and voluntarily abandoned some defensive zones.

The military had never known how much Energy Stone reserve Hesheng actually had. When they saw Hesheng shrinking its perimeter, they immediately ordered, forbidding that kind of operation. But this time even He Huiqing refused, saying, we can keep from abandoning areas, but are you providing us with Energy Stones?

With things having come to this point, the military had no choice but to lift He Runxian’s soft detention. No matter what, he was still the one most familiar with the production base, both its production and its defenses.

Once He Runxian was free, his first order was to continue contracting the defensive perimeter and move most of the production underground.

The military was quite unhappy about this, but He Runxian stated: I suspect the base’s outward Energy Stone transport has already been discovered by the Insect Race.

If it’s been discovered, then the enemy will definitely intensify its attacks. We don’t have much time left.

Less than a day after he said that, the Insect Race abruptly stepped up its assault. At first everyone thought He Runxian had somehow foreseen it, but later they realized it wasn’t just Hesheng taking heavy hits; other places were the same.

Very soon, a message came down from above: the bugs had launched a total offensive and were determined to take the star system at any cost.

At that point, it was too late for the military to object to Hesheng’s contraction. And with the battle at this intensity, even if Hesheng still had surplus Energy Stones, trying to ship them out would exact a horrific price and enormous losses.

Even so, they continued to suspect that Hesheng still had plenty of Energy Stones, so they slapped Hesheng with additional emergency production tasks.

He Runxian didn’t want to take on any more tasks, but the military declared that even if he shrank the defensive ring further, he still had to accept the production orders—those yards of yours need to be given up, what are you protecting them for?

Of course He Runxian was going to protect the yards. Even if he gave up all the other yards, Storage Yard No. 3 had to be kept—this wasn’t about some sentimental value; he strongly suspected that yard might house a node for Underground Leap.

He would rather abandon all production zones than lose that yard. No one knew how long the war would drag on; keeping that place was Hesheng’s only hope of survival.

Of course, to throw people off, he kept two other yards as well. Protecting these three yards consumed quite a lot of Energy Blocks, and any damage taken during the day had to be repaired overtime at night.

Because he insisted on protecting these three yards, he was forced to accept some new contracts, which in turn piled even more defensive pressure onto Hesheng.

The military contracts still needing production now were all supplies that would be used as soon as they were made. Transport in the daytime was difficult, so shipments went out at midnight.

But the bugs weren’t stupid. This place was clearly out in the suburbs, yet they were transporting at night—that obviously meant something was going on. So the bugs increased the intensity of their attacks on the base, hitting hard not only during the day but also at night, and even deployed more night‑vision Insect Race units.

Precisely because of this, there were few night attacks by the bugs within Zuo Jing City itself, while the offensive against the base remained fierce.

By now the military no longer expected the base to ship out any Energy Stones; all they demanded was that the military‑supply contracts be fulfilled.

He Runxian wanted to refuse, but this time even Zuo Jing City Government Mansion wouldn’t agree—although they weren’t getting any Energy Blocks either, as long as the production base put up fierce resistance, it could help share some of the pressure for the city.

He Runxian was so angry he wanted to curse his mother, but whether it was the military or the government, they all said if you want to swear just swear; as long as you can draw the Insect Race’s fire, don’t just swear, you can even beat us up. But first... you have to hold out until the war is over before you can beat anyone up, right?

The military actually didn’t care that much about drawing fire, but they did need the military orders. Right now on the entire planet, enterprises that can still process and produce military orders are truly few and far between.

So their attitude was: defend as hard as you can. Once the bugs break through the production base, not only will everyone die, the Energy Blocks you haven’t spent will also become the Insect Race’s provisions.

In He Runxian’s eyes this was pure shamelessness, but with the situation as it was, it really wasn’t something he could haggle over. The current Hesheng Production Base was practically an isolated island; he also didn’t want to feed the enemy with the remaining Energy Blocks.

Plus there was another problem: he had no idea whether the Federation had the resolve to rescue this star system, and if they did, how long they expected them to hold out—for now it looked like the Energy Blocks were already running a bit short.

The idea of saving Energy Blocks wasn’t just his; the City Defense Army helping defend the base thought the same. If they really ran out of Energy Blocks, no one even knew whether they’d still be able to retreat to the lost zones—of course, by that point it was entirely possible the urban area would have fallen already.

The Big Boss found the whole thing laughable because in its view: if you’d known it would turn out like this, why did you make such a fuss back then? Wouldn’t it have been better to just let Feng Jun keep cooperating with Hesheng in peace? Now look at you, that Minister Shen is dead and the situation has gotten even worse.

In the end, the Big Boss wasn’t a Human Cultivator; it basically didn’t have that "share a common enemy" mindset and instead loved to watch the show. "...In just this short while he’s already muttered ’sir’ three times. Sigh, every road is one you walk yourself into oblivion."

Feng Jun, however, felt a trace of unwillingness in his heart. In his opinion, the true culprit was Minister Shen. Even though the decision hadn’t been made by that man alone, the one who’d been eager to blow things up, to dye his official hat red with human blood, was precisely this inexplicable guy.

Give it to any halfway intelligent person: even if they believed the Human Cultivator forces could become a potential threat, there’s no way they’d pull something like that right on the front line, would they? Faced with a massive Insect Race offensive, you start an internal feud?

Since most of the problem lay with Minister Shen, then He Runxian—indeed the entire Hesheng Base—could be said to have been dragged into it. The fact that things had developed to this point really was regrettable.

So he thought for a while, and finally still asked another question, "With their current defenses, is it still convenient to slip inside unnoticed?"

The Big Boss paused, then asked in surprise, "You still plan to help them?"

"Do what you can and leave the rest to fate," Feng Jun said lightly. "Lao He, as a person, is actually not bad. His biggest mistake is just... he himself isn’t strong enough."

"If you’re not strong yourself, then you deserve whatever you get," the Big Boss replied indifferently, but in the end it still said, "I’ll give it a try."

Just then the space beside Feng Jun rippled; Yi Jue had returned, and her first words were, "We’re exposed."

"Exposed... as we should be, right?" Feng Jun didn’t really find it surprising. The Insect Race follows the Incense Fire Ascension system; if cultivators kept succeeding in sneak attacks, it’d be one thing, but last time they’d forced that out-of-body bug to Self-Detonate its Nascent Soul—how could that be kept from the Insect Race?

Yi Jue knew what he was thinking; she answered in a deep voice, "We’re not just exposed in front of the Insect Race. We’re exposed to the Human Race as well. They have a lot of detectors out in space..."

The Federation side discovered anomalies and once again began trying to contact the mysterious Human forces.

But they seemed to be losing their composure a bit; they actually stated openly, "We have contacted you many times, which already shows great sincerity. Privately modifying Human Race genes without Federation approval is a criminal act. We hope you can take this opportunity to atone for your crimes!"

That was the phrasing of a threat; there were also relatively softer phrases, along the lines of "Please believe the Federation will fully respect intellectual property."

These messages being sent out definitely couldn’t be hidden from the cultivators. Considering the Federation’s fairly tough wording, they clearly weren’t firing blind; Xiaotong True Sage specially performed a Soul Search on a dying lieutenant colonel and learned that the Federation indeed had ample evidence.

However, Xiaotong True Sage wouldn’t take this to heart. He reported the situation briefly, then said that everyone should just keep doing what they were doing anyway; after all, they had never planned to interact with the Human Race here.

The Insect Race’s offensive against the Human Race grew fiercer, but the news reaching the cultivators was exactly the opposite: there was intelligence indicating the Insect Race was planning to withdraw.

This information wasn’t something the cultivators imagined out of thin air; the Insect Race had already realized that the Human Cultivators they were facing and the Human Alliance might be two different civilizations.

The Human Federation couldn’t sense many anomalies in the cultivators, but just from the way energy was used, the Insect Race could tell these two sides were fundamentally different things—especially the way those three out-of-body bugs had been killed, which highlighted the point even more.

So while the cultivators continued their hunt, a steady stream of Nascent Soul Bugs began begging Ren Tu and Ban Yu True Sage for mercy. "Honored lords, spare us. We’ll fight a bit longer and then we’ll leave!"

The Insect Race of course didn’t speak the Tianqin language, but conveying certain intentions via Divine Sense was no problem.

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