Mingmei wasn't quite sure where she stood now.

How had a boxed lunch merchant, who was supposed to be on the players' side, suddenly transformed into a member of the space pirates?

Am I a double agent?

Mingmei watched the space pirates in the control room, some feasting and drinking, playing guessing games and bragging, others diligently working out, and still others dutifully monitoring every corner of the starship.

At first, Mingmei felt a little awkward about everyone's enthusiasm. She glanced around, and when she saw that they had stopped paying attention to her, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She mustered her courage and walked toward the control console in the control room. A space pirate was intently watching it, and Mingmei was afraid that the players' actions would soon be discovered.

"Lao Liu, go to slave quarters 03. There seems to be a problem."

Just as Mingmei feared, one of the space pirates standing at the console suddenly said, "Robot 054 hasn't transmitted any signals since just now, and one of the surveillance cameras seems to be damaged."

As soon as he finished speaking, a burly man who had been arm-wrestling with some other space pirates suddenly looked up. The murderous aura on his face startled Mingmei.

"Okay, good. I was just complaining that arm-wrestling wasn't enough of a workout."

The man called Lao Liu chuckled, cracking his knuckles.

When he stood up straight, Mingmei realized that he was nearly two and a half meters tall.

Amazing!

With that height and that burly build, Mingmei suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.

How are we going to fight this?

…

Hu Yue and the others, who Mingmei was worried about, were currently standing in a corner near the destroyed camera that the space pirates had discovered. Perhaps because they had survived the genetic modification, the ambushing players clearly felt that their five senses had been heightened.

Even standing so far apart, they could pick up on slight changes in each other's breathing or any small movements.

Hu Yue was getting increasingly agitated. They hadn't even encountered anyone yet, and he was already being tormented by the sounds of his own teammates.

Just as Hu Yue was about to tell everyone to stop moving, they suddenly heard footsteps!

Hu Yue: !!

The footsteps clearly didn't belong to any of them.

Realizing this, Hu Yue and the others immediately held their breath. Without needing Hu Yue to remind them, everyone instinctively stopped all their movements.

They stared wide-eyed at what was happening, waiting for the owner of the footsteps to approach…

Meanwhile, after showing off her social skills and sunshine personality, Lu Xiaoyao had finally made herself hoarse talking to everyone. She belatedly took a sip of the purified water she had bought from Mingmei a few days ago.

As she drank, she naturally thought of Mingmei again.

And so—

"Where did my big, beautiful Meimei go?!"

Lu Xiaoyao's terrified cry attracted everyone's attention. They saw Lu Xiaoyao looking around in confusion, asking, "Has anyone seen a beautiful woman with a cold face and a backpack? She was standing right here!"

Lu Xiaoyao pointed to the spot where Mingmei had disappeared, but everyone shook their heads, saying they hadn't seen her.

Lu Xiaoyao stubbornly squeezed through the crowd, searching for a long time. Zhen Po was also called in to help, but after panting for ages, they found nothing.

"Mingmei—"

Lu Xiaoyao weaved through the crowd in the room, unable to find her, and feeling anxious. She suddenly felt a little short of breath.

She shouted again, unwilling to give up, but instead of calling out Mingmei, the door to the slave quarters suddenly opened.

"Who's shouting?"

Lao Liu had originally intended to head straight to the scene of the incident, but Lu Xiaoyao's voice was too loud. In case there was any rebellion within the slave quarters, Lao Liu turned and walked over there.

When he opened the door, Lu Xiaoyao didn't even have time to close her mouth.

Being interrupted by a mountain-like space pirate, Lu Xiaoyao's anxious heart was suddenly doused with cold water.

Lu Xiaoyao: =o=

Was it too late to say she was practicing her breathing exercises?

The atmosphere dropped to freezing point. No one dared to say a word to the fierce-looking, murderous space pirate.

Moreover, there was a row of robots behind him that could blow their heads off.

So everyone shrank back, causing Lu Xiaoyao, who was still standing there in a daze, to suddenly appear very forward.

"I… I'm looking for someone…"

Lu Xiaoyao was also terrified, but seeing how everyone else looked, she could only bite the bullet and step forward.

She admitted her mistake first, but without a word, the other party raised his fist and swung it at her weak-looking head.

"Am I pretty enough!"

Lu Xiaoyao's eyes widened, and she dodged the incoming fist while cursing.

She also noticed out of the corner of her eye that the robots behind him had raised their hands, the firing symbol on their fingertips forcing Lu Xiaoyao to grit her teeth and charge at his solid body after dodging the punch!

"Zhen Po!"

While charging at him, Lu Xiaoyao also prevented herself from being smashed to death by his huge fist. She could only call for help!

As Lu Xiaoyao shouted, Lao Liu naturally caught sight of another male player eager to make a move. He wasn't angry. The robots behind him couldn't hit Lu Xiaoyao, who was using his body as a shield, but surely they could hit Zhen Po next to him?

Before he could even think that, Lu Xiaoyao had already dodged his punch again, propped up her elbow, and slammed it into his abdomen!

With a "smack," Lu Xiaoyao's elbow suddenly retracted, directly blocking the leg he had raised.

The collision between his calf and her arm sent Lu Xiaoyao flying.

At that moment, Zhen Po had already dodged the robot's volley of fire and rolled in front of Lao Liu, delivering a sweep.

However, he had underestimated the other party's weight and stability. When he swept the other party's hard, iron-like calf, Zhen Po's expression changed.

It felt like sweeping a steel bar!

The other party's raised foot hadn't even had time to retract. He lowered his head and saw another person coming at him, and was about to stomp on Zhen Po!

Zhen Po couldn't react to the speed of the stomp. In that instant, Zhen Po knew that if he was hit, he would definitely be crippled!

"Get out of the way!"

Suddenly, another group of people stood out from the crowd, shouting.

The person held a special silk thread that they had somehow obtained, and pulled the other party's body backward. Taking advantage of this brief pause, Zhen Po quickly rolled out of the range of the other party's foot.

The other party was interrupted again and again, and Lao Liu finally lost his balance and fell to one side.

At that moment, there was another sound of running at the door. Everyone looked up and saw a figure rushing in from outside the door, kicking down all the robots behind Lao Liu with lightning speed!

"What are you waiting for!?"

Hu Yue held down one of the robots and directly poked its hand into another robot. Soon, smoke rose from the robot, accompanied by a burning smell.

The others who had followed Hu Yue in also dealt with the robots. As Lu Xiaoyao and Zhen Po got up in pain, they saw the space pirate who had been tripped earlier. He was now lying there, his head separated from his body.

A silk thread stretched taut by two people had been placed where the person had fallen, half a meter above the ground. It was stained with drops of blood.

Lu Xiaoyao watched the NPCs with cold, serious expressions standing next to Hu Yue, talking to him. Lu Xiaoyao gradually came to her senses.

So they were all in cahoots.

These people…

Lu Xiaoyao looked at the silk thread wrapped around Hu Yue's hand. Her intuition told her that these people were prepared.

In the next second, Lu Xiaoyao couldn't help but sigh at how luck-based role-playing could be.

Like her, what could she do as a cafeteria server?

Lu Xiaoyao looked enviously at Hu Yue, whose expression wasn't good at the moment.

They were really going to be exposed now.

While they were subduing the robots, Hu Yue found powerful weapons on the only space pirate they had encountered.

"Tch! Are they looking down on us?"

Hu Yue spat fiercely. This space pirate had screwed up, so the next space pirates would definitely be prepared and wouldn't be like this again.

When that time came—

Hu Yue looked around, watching the ordinary NPCs cowering together, already scared out of their wits by the scene. He suddenly had an even bigger headache.

They could run and hide first, but what would happen to these people when the space pirates came?

He wasn't afraid that they would turn around and sell them out. He was afraid that even if these people sold them out, would the space pirates still not see them as human and kill them at will to vent their anger?

Hu Yue's worries were indeed confirmed on Mingmei's side.

"Even if some people resist, the others don't deserve to die…"

Mingmei saw several space pirates who had received the news and were burning with anger. They were fully equipped and about to leave with the robots.

Mingmei saw the weapons they were holding, and it wasn't as simple as casually killing someone.

So Mingmei couldn't help but step forward and stop them.

"What? Those people?"

The space pirates sneered, glancing at Mingmei, clearly dissatisfied with her softheartedness. "Without them, there are still billions more waiting below!"

"But we don't have that many gene serums!"

Mingmei immediately changed her tack, saying, "We've selected only a few hundred people out of tens of thousands. If only a dozen or twenty of them want to rebel, and you want to vent your anger and wipe out the entire group, aren't you worried about the gene serums? I'm worried about them!"

Mingmei, who had been startled by the dissatisfied looks from the people earlier, immediately changed her strategy.

Then she turned to look at the others, her voice calm and unhurried. "The important thing now is to catch those traitors and deter the other slaves, not to kill a group of slaves to vent your anger without finding the rebels. That kind of incompetence will only give the slaves in the other slave quarters hope—

If they don't resist, they'll die anyway, so they might as well resist."

As Mingmei spoke, she heard the person beside her snort coldly. She ignored it and continued, "I'll say it again, there are many people outside, but how many gene serums do you have left?"

When she said this, Mingmei couldn't help but lose her composure.

She suddenly realized a serious problem—

If there weren't enough gene serums, what would be the point of them taking over the starship?