Chapter 1 The Imposter

The slender woman in black walked up to Li Cheng, removed her mask, revealing a beautiful face that clearly showed her as the daughter of the woman beside him.

"Dad, this mask is uncomfortable. Where did you put the one I had yesterday?"

Li Cheng chuckled, patting his daughter's head.

"Your sister broke the one you had yesterday... You really are perceptive. I secretly replaced it with an identical one, but you still noticed."

The young woman snorted with laughter.

"The mask might be identical, but can the tightness of the elastic band be the same? I could feel something was off the moment I put it on."

"Hahaha, your sister is naughty, what can you do? Forgive her."

The young woman put the mask back on, turned her head to look at Lin Xian, and sized him up.

"And this is...?"

Big Face Cat stepped forward and introduced him.

"Ningning, this is my new little brother, Lin Xian! His skills are comparable to yours! He's amazing at climbing walls. Now you don't have to climb walls alone anymore. You have someone to accompany you!"

Having said that.

He turned his head and looked at Lin Xian.

"Lin Xian, this is Boss Li's eldest daughter, Li Ningning. She's our main force in these operations. We rely on her to climb over the walls and steal things... The rest of us are responsible for building the human wall and handling transportation."

Li Ningning walked over and extended her hand to Lin Xian.

"Hello, Lin Xian."

"Hello."

Lin Xian shook her hand.

For a moment just now… Lin Xian really thought it was CC who had walked out.

Mainly because Li Ningning’s Ultraman mask was too deceptive… Moreover, their figures were very similar, and coupled with the black tight-fitting suit, he had really mistaken her for a moment.

On closer inspection, the two had slightly different hair colors.

CC's hair color was the same as Chu Anqing's, a dark brown. Li Ningning's hair, on the other hand, was jet black.

In terms of appearance, Li Ningning was more mature and charming, a carbon copy of her mother, while CC and Chu Anqing had faces full of pure innocence, more like inexperienced young girls.

Li Ningning's hand was a bit rough, feeling sandy to the touch, lacking the smoothness and tenderness a girl should have. It seemed that she did quite a bit of manual labor usually… which was a bit inconsistent with her identity as the eldest daughter of a wealthy family.

"Are you sure you can do it?"

Li Ningning looked at Lin Xian.

"The garbage disposal plant's wall is more than eight meters high. The human wall built by those three is only about five meters. We still need to climb and jump about three meters on our own… This job is usually done by a girl with a light weight. Can you… really do it?"

Lin Xian nodded to reassure her.

Although he didn’t know which style of martial arts Li Ningning practiced, for a parkour expert… relying on momentum and jumping ability to climb three meters on an uneven wall was not a difficult task.

"Alright, everyone!"

Li Cheng clapped his hands, signaling everyone to quiet down, his expression serious.

"Let's go! Be careful!"

…

Boom—

A minivan drove on the dirt road, approaching the distant Xin Dong Hai City.

Big Face Cat and his three underlings sat in the front two rows, while Lin Xian and Li Ningning sat in the back row.

Looking at Xin Dong Hai City getting closer and closer, Lin Xian felt more and more the magnificence of the steel wall.

The two-hundred-meter-high wall divided the world in two.

The road was very bumpy.

Lin Xian and Li Ningning sat in the back row, swaying from side to side. Their shoulders would occasionally bump together, and the fragrance from Li Ningning wafted into his nose.

That was…

Lin Xian inhaled into his nasal cavity.

It was… the scent of roses.

Lin Xian wasn't sure if it was the scent of skincare cream, shampoo, or hand cream… but in short, the scent of roses was unmistakable.

He himself was an employee of a cosmetics company. He was very familiar with all kinds of floral scents, and he could tell the type with just one sniff.

This was considered a basic skill in the cosmetics field. Almost everyone at X Company had this ability, just like everyone could automatically think of the color code when they saw a lipstick color.

"We're here, get out of the car!"

Big Face Cat stopped the minivan on a small hilltop and told everyone to get out of the car.

The place was about one kilometer away from the towering steel wall, and they could vaguely see the black smoke rising from the garbage disposal plant under the wall…

Big Face Cat gave Lin Xian a telescope, asked him to observe the environment around the garbage disposal plant, and explained to him.

"All garbage disposal plants are fully automated. Each plant only has one supervisor, who is in that place—"

Lin Xian looked in the direction he pointed and saw a figure in uniform in the operating room in the middle of the garbage disposal plant.

"Apart from that one living person, everything else is robots. Including patrolling, transporting, incinerating, transferring, separating, loading, and so on… all the work is done automatically by robots and machines."

Lin Xian nodded.

Moving the telescope, he could see various busy robots and equipment in the garbage disposal plant. Obviously, these were all fully automated.

Lin Xian wasn't surprised by this.

He had wondered before, if a steel-walled city like Xin Dong Hai City didn't communicate with the outside world at all… where did their food come from? Where did their raw materials come from? Where did some of their daily necessities come from?

Later, he understood.

This was 600 years later, and one couldn't use the thinking of 600 years ago to consider the problem.

Even in 2023, where Lin Xian was from, many factories and farms had already achieved full mechanical automation. Only one worker was needed to symbolically work a shift to ensure the normal operation of a factory.

In the face of powerful productivity, perhaps not so much population labor force was needed at all.

"There are a total of six drones patrolling on fixed routes above the wall. Under extreme conditions… there will be about 1 minute of surveillance downtime every 40 minutes; after 12 minutes, there will be another 30 seconds of surveillance downtime."

"So Lin Xian, you and Li Ningning have to climb over the wall in this 1-minute surveillance blind spot, and then climb out again in the 30-second surveillance blind spot 12 minutes later. Don't worry, just climb out from the old spot. The four of us will be supporting you below, so you won't fall."

Big Face Cat continued to explain.

"In addition to the six patrol drones, the automated robots inside are like the blind, only doing work according to the program. You don't have to worry about being discovered by them."

"But the supervisor will see you, so we have to sneak in during his shift change time between 0:00:20."

"So combining the two time points… the safe time to steal things is to sneak in between 0:04:00 and 0:05, and climb out between 0:17:00 and 0:17:30!"

"Do you understand?"

Lin Xian nodded…

This whole arrangement really wasn't easy.

They had to go to great lengths to steal things, and they could only steal for 12 minutes.

Moreover, they couldn't steal in a high-profile way. They needed to throw the things over the wall, and then Big Face Cat and the others would hide the thrown-out things in the woods, and finally move them together into the minivan and take them back.

They needed to build a human wall when climbing in.

They didn't need it when climbing out because a lot of non-burnable garbage was placed against the wall, enough height for him and Li Ningning to climb and jump out.

"The plan is very rigorous," Lin Xian praised.

"Hehe, it's been implemented for many years, and we've never made a mistake!"

Big Face Cat smiled proudly.

"That's the bad thing about machines. They're very powerful, but they're too standard, and everything can be calculated."

"However, there are always unexpected situations."

Big Face Cat handed Lin Xian a whistle and blew it, making a sound like a quick bird call.

"Did you hear that sound? Remember, no matter when you hear this sound, retreat immediately and climb out of the wall. Don't care about anything, just run and gather at this hilltop."

"Whether you blow it or we blow it, as long as you hear the sound, run to the top immediately. Don't hesitate."

He patted Lin Xian on the shoulder.

"Be careful and cautious. It's better to retreat temporarily than to take risks."

…

The group sneaked through the woods, gradually approaching the garbage disposal plant.

The closer they got, the louder the roar of the high-temperature incinerator was.

Lin Xian didn't know how high the temperature of that blue flame was, but it seemed to be much higher than the temperature of the incinerator in Lin Xian's understanding.

They jogged all the way.

Big Face Cat turned his head.

"Huh? Where's Ningning?"

Lin Xian also turned his head and found that Li Ningning was gone.

She was clearly behind him just now.

"Ningning is over there, Boss," A Zhuang pointed to Li Ningning, who was far behind the others.

Big Face Cat waved his hand.

"Hurry, hurry, keep up, run faster."

Soon.

Li Ningning, wearing black clothes and an Ultraman mask, caught up.

The group had already arrived at the foot of the high wall of the garbage disposal plant. Big Face Cat looked at his watch and instructed Lin Xian.

"When stealing things, remember the priority I told you before. If there are books, you must take them; then electronic products; and the rest are arranged in the order I told you before…"

Lin Xian secretly memorized it, then raised his head and looked at the wall in front of him.

The height was indeed around eight or nine meters, which ordinary people could not climb over. Not to mention there were six drones patrolling in the air all the time.

But because of their route and speed problems, there would indeed be surveillance blind spots and downtime.

Big Face Cat looked at the watch on his wrist.

At the same time, he paid attention to the crossing and separation of two surveillance drones in the air…

0:04

"Now!"

The surveillance blind spot appeared!

Big Face Cat sped up and ran, his stout body directly supporting the wall!

"San Pang!"

San Pang jumped, pressing his shoulders, and stepped his feet on Big Face Cat’s shoulders, and also supported the wall with his arms.

"A Zhuang!"

A Zhuang climbed onto San Pang like climbing a ladder, also stepping his feet on the shoulders and continuing to build a human ladder.

"Er Zhuzi!"

As the last stick of the human pillar, Er Zhuzi was as light as a swallow. He climbed onto A Zhuang's shoulders and gave the human ladder another person's height.

"The human ladder is ready!" Big Face Cat shouted, his face flushed.

"Ningning, jump first!"

Lin Xian looked back and saw Li Ningning in an Ultraman mask nodded and started sprinting!

Li Ningning was very fast… Her slender figure combined with her powerful explosive force, like a cheetah, a swallow! She brushed past Lin Xian with a whistling wind—

The fragrance on her body floated with the airflow, seeping into Lin Xian's nasal cavity…

The scent of camellias.

Lin Xian's sense of smell was very sharp, and he smelled it instantly.

Huh?

He took another breath!

The smell had changed!

This wasn't the scent on Li Ningning's body!

That woman wearing the Ultraman mask! Wasn't Li Ningning!

"Hey!"

Lin Xian was about to remind Big Face Cat and the others to pay attention.

But that "Ultraman," dressed exactly like Li Ningning, jumped over the human ladder like a rabbit stepping on a spring! She successfully climbed over the high wall in a few jumps.

"Brother Face! That's not—"

"Climb, Lin Xian! No time! The drone is coming!"

Big Face Cat's face flushed red, interrupting Lin Xian.

"Climb!!"

Lin Xian gritted his teeth!

Accelerated his run-up! Climbed and jumped!

Grabbed the gaps on the wall and quickly stepped against the wall a few times to flip over!

Thud.

He landed steadily on a pile of old furniture.

Crack!

Behind him…

A gun pressed against the back of Lin Xian's head!