Now let me explain why things weren't going smoothly for the group.
On paper, Yang Yang's team had a top-tier setup for any high-stakes mission. First off, they had the only S-tier fighter, Zhen Nantan. His specific ability was still a mystery even to his allies, but his raw combat power was ridiculous, capable of shifting the momentum of any encounter.
Then they had the intuition-based national treasure Hao Yunlai, who could sense shifting danger in the air around them. The word was that this mission would have gone cleanly without Hao Yunlai's help, but his premonitions had kept them one step ahead of total disaster.
Then there was the brain of the operation, Yang Yang, whose intel was frighteningly good, gathered from sources across the continent. A lot of their previous fights were won with precise information rather than brute force. With a combo like that, what could possibly stop them?
The answer was simple: this trip's destination was Austin.
Does that sound familiar? Of course it does. The underground black market and the slavers' boss had chosen Austin as their sanctuary this time, drawing a line in the sand. Yang Yang's crew had also come to Austin to steal a full set of dehydration technology for vegetables, swiping the nobles' and slavers' most precious grain from the No. 23 freighter.
You can imagine how furious the nobles and slavers were about the theft. They dropped a ton of money to have Austin run a global manhunt for the thieves. If anyone from Yang Yang's team showed their face now, the slavers would find out instantly.
Since everyone was in Austin, couldn't Yang Yang and his few people just disguise themselves and hide in the crowds? No. Austin's reputation had something to do with the difficulty. If powerful slavers were coming here specifically to seek sanctuary, it meant Austin had real, formidable power.
Before the apocalypse began, Austin was the capital of Texas, a city on par with Silicon Valley as a major tech hub. Dell had headquarters there. IBM, Amazon, and other global research centers had established high-tech labs. It was a place where computing and technological expertise were top-notch.
After the world fell apart, Austin leaned into technology even harder. With advanced tech and strict systems of equality and security, it became dominant in the region. Lots of independent farm owners came asking for protection. Austin developed a complete, independent system, turning itself into a rare utopia of equality, safety, and freedom in a broken America.
When most of Austin was flooded during the second year, the mayor rebuilt over the surviving city using a newly developed material to make a massive "castle" that covered the entire district like a protective shell. It wasn't just waterproof; it wasn't just quake-resistant and naturally insulated, staying warm in winter and cool in summer. People started calling it heaven on earth.
Countless farm owners and capitalists poured in to escape the chaos. If you paid hundreds of pounds of grain—around 45 kg—you could enter the castle. How you lived once inside depended entirely on how many resources you had.
So Austin split into two distinct parts.
The huge Castle held two hundred thousand grain dealers and middle-class people from everywhere, gathering the world's top tech and mountains of supplies within its walls. Outside the Castle lived drifters and those who couldn't afford food, people scraping by with odd jobs in the shadows of the spire. Though their lives were difficult, they were still much better than in most places across the wasteland.
What does it feel like to have cutting-edge tech and computing working against you? Yang Yang's crew found out as soon as they arrived; they were flagged as wanted criminals by the central database. Forget getting into the Castle; even the outskirts had daily patrols of armed men.
Any Chinese face would be dragged to the data center for immediate checks, and the Castle had its own sealed energy grid and layered inspections. You couldn't slip past those sensors without authorization.
So Yang Yang reverted to his old trade. He killed some locals, flayed their skin, and used it to disguise the team, planning to hack into the data center and alter their records. Then they would sneak into the Castle to steal whatever technology they needed.
But Austin's tech was so insane that when Yang Yang went through a full-body scanner at a checkpoint, the system instantly matched fingerprints, iris patterns, and facial structures. It flagged the fake leather masks as foreign material.
If Zhen Nantan hadn't intervened with his power, things would have gone very badly for them. In front of those high-precision machines, two sheets of synthetic collagen didn't fool anything; the infiltration failed completely.
They couldn't go in through the front, so they tried to make a hole in the thick Castle wall and sneak in. The moment they started breaking the material, alarms screamed through the corridors. They ran for a long time with automated cameras on their tail, and it took a lot of effort to finally shake them off.
They tried digging tunnels, aerial bombardment, and other drastic methods, but nothing worked. Austin protected its central tech and supplies like an egg without a seam. There was nowhere to pry it open.
On top of that, the slavers had exposed their identities to the local authorities, so everyone, including Jing Shu, was being hunted. Now even attempting to enter as a Chinese person meant a brutal interrogation. Of course, if they had never stolen the slavers' cargo in the first place, they wouldn't be in this mess.
"So, up to now, you still haven't managed to get into that big Castle in Austin?" Jing Shu asked with an odd expression. "You can't be serious; could such a talented team be stuck on something so small?"
Yang Yang sighed, his fingers drumming on his knee. "We could get in; it's just a matter of the cost. We could bribe an entire guard detail to look the other way, but every area inside the Castle requires constant identity verification. Those checks need a random authentication code that links to a registered citizen."
"We stole some high-tech from their people a couple years ago, and they locked down because of that. This time, they're watching for us specifically."
You live wild, you pay the price sooner or later.
Jing Shu went speechless. That's all on you. The place really was that impressive from the outside. Everywhere else in the world was dark and grim, but the Castle bathed the air in a soft, comfortable light. The material was called the Ever-Motion Sun; it stayed lit like a luminous pearl and generated its own power through the pressure of the structure. This new composite was Austin's prized treasure, and who knows if all the legends about its functions were true.
"And the thing we're after is one of the things they're protecting most closely right now," Yang Yang continued, looking at the distant glow. "So hoping they will just move the equipment out isn't realistic. We either raid them, or we hack the data center first. But bribing the data center people is unlikely. They're the mayor's inner circle; they lack nothing. They're filthy rich by anyone's standards."
Zhen Nantan opened his eyes. They were deep enough to make you dizzy, like a billion stars swirling in a void. "I don't want to use force unless I have no choice. If it comes down to it, I will bring Snake Spirits and make a scene, while you go mess with the database. How is that?"
Yang Yang squinted, weighing the pros and cons of the suggestion. Zhen Nantan's combat power was unquestionable, but causing a riot would expose too many things they needed to keep secret.
Jing Shu cleared her throat. After listening for a while, she finally spoke up. "You guys are stuck in a dead end. You don't need to go through all that. I actually have a plan."
Yang Yang's eyes lit up. "Tell us."
Zhen Nantan glanced at Jing Shu, studying her with a tilted head. "This woman gives me a weird vibe. When I first met her she didn't have it. What have they run into lately?"
Jing Shu flexed her limbs, feeling her muscles move. She had finally gotten a lot more coordinated these last few days. Then she said, "Maybe it's because you lot always worked as thieves and never dared to enter openly. Why don't we go in openly and get legitimate identities of our own? Austin is actually welcoming to new immigrants who can pay food."
"But we're all wanted."