Volume One, Chapter 19: Infiltration

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“Damn it, you still won’t leave? Planning to stick around here for a midnight snack?” The robot snarled fiercely, pointing toward the door as Lin Xi finished changing into his night gear.

“Nong, that loser, just seeing him makes me want to puke. And having a midnight snack with Nong, that loser—does the robot also like to dream?” Lin Xi, pocketing his modified high-voltage taser, mimicked the robot’s accent and cursed loudly before swaggering toward the door.

...

A heavily concealed manhole cover to the sewer was slowly pushed aside, and a hand smeared with mud stretched out from within.

“You bastard, damn brainless robot, your entrances and exits are so damn bizarre—one day I’ll tear you apart.” Lin Xi was an extremely rational man; even when facing ruthless criminals, he maintained calm and reason at all times.

Only when dealing with the robot assigned from above to supervise him and serve as his weapon custodian did Lin Xi’s reason utterly collapse.

From the moment he first encountered this guy, Lin Xi knew he was an abstract, even somewhat brain-damaged AI defective product. But as time went on, Lin Xi realized he had underestimated the degree of this defect—the abstraction no longer belonged to the realm of robots, but had become a deeply twisted, uniquely “artistic” form.

Lin Xi pulled out his phone from the pocket of his night gear and tapped out a complex Morse code sequence on a hidden button.

After the phone’s flashlight flickered several times, a map was projected onto the empty ground before Lin Xi. The red dots blinking on the map marked the residence of the infiltrator mentioned in the information 009 had sent him earlier.

According to the data, this infiltrator, named Bai Wujue, was a high-ranking official, one of the few leaders with significant influence. His current true identity was that of a foreign senior operative.

At the time, foreign forces threatened his family’s lives, compelling him to venture alone into a perilous zone, intending to trade his own life for theirs. The foreign forces tried to bribe him, but they underestimated his backbone. After three days and nights of brutal torture, he revealed no secrets.

In a rage, the foreign powers extracted his DNA and illegally manufactured a batch of androids bearing his and his family’s genetic likeness.

They extracted most of their memories and then cruelly slaughtered them overseas. This part of the record was documented in the recently destroyed national secret files.

For such android infiltrators, conventional means of elimination would spark varying degrees of panic. Therefore, someone like Lin Xi, a “cleaner,” was tasked with ensuring their dignified disappearance from this world.

Lin Xi concealed his trail as he moved at an almost eerie speed toward the location of his next target.

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Arriving before a manor, Lin Xi stood atop a hill overlooking the estate and cautiously surveyed the security layout through binoculars.

The manor’s security was exceptionally thorough: every ten minutes, a fully armed squad patrolled the grounds. Unlike Lin Xi’s taser pistol, each soldier wore heavy bulletproof armor and carried a full complement of live ammunition.

Lin Xi pulled out his notebook and after countless simulations and calculations, finally settled on a barely feasible plan.

The primary step was to create a disturbance near the manor to pinpoint the rooms housing the androids, enabling the next phase of infiltration.

Because daylight was too bright, Lin Xi worried his actions would be too conspicuous, alerting the targets. He decided to wait until nightfall before making his move.

Leaning against a branch of a tall tree atop the hill, Lin Xi closed his eyes, basking in the sun, quietly resting through the afternoon until the sun fully set, when he slowly awoke.

“Ah~” Stretching luxuriously, Lin Xi slipped down the tree like a ghost, his figure distorting briefly before vanishing into the night.

When his silhouette reappeared on the hill’s tree branch, a roaring fire had erupted in the manor’s southeast corner.

Holding his night-vision binoculars, he scanned and compared the shadows flickering in various rooms, finally confirming the locations of all infiltrators to be eliminated.

The records stated that including Bai Wujue himself, six people had been replaced by androids: Bai Wujue, his mother, his father, his wife, and their pair of twins.

Taking advantage of the fire’s recent extinguishment, Lin Xi scaled the garden wall and leapt inside. At that moment, Bai Wujue’s twins were walking there with their mother.

Lin Xi fired multiple shots directly at their backs. The taser’s barbed probes pierced their skin, and the highly charged tailpieces discharged electricity instantly. The three androids fell silently, their bodies blackened, collapsing in the garden.

After photographing them for identification, Lin Xi sprinkled a corrosive solution known to dissolve any material over the bodies.

A violent chemical reaction ensued, dissolving the bodies visibly within seconds into a pool of unpleasant-smelling wastewater.

Lin Xi had no time to linger over the bloodstain. He had to finish off the remaining four androids before the guards returned and leave with enough time to escape.

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“Pfft...”

Having dispatched another android, Lin Xi now stood in a corner on the second floor of the manor’s Ningxin Hall annex. The soldiers’ return to posts was faster than he had anticipated, and two androids still awaited elimination.

Those two were in the Wushi Hall, the main hall, a full five hundred meters away.

Patrolling soldiers had nearly sealed off every shadowy corner through which he might stealthily pass.

After a moment’s thought, Lin Xi conceived a bold idea inspired by the overweight man who had jumped off the bus earlier.

Holding his knife, Lin Xi sliced open the skin along the spine of the old man’s corpse before him, quickly peeling off the human skin. Using the corrosive solution, he dissolved the internal organs and flesh.

He then slipped on the intact human skin, awkwardly stepping out the door toward the Wushi Hall. Though the patrolling soldiers found it odd, none approached to inquire about Bai Wujue’s father’s whereabouts.

They knew well the old man’s mercurial temper and dared not tempt fate at this time.

Disguised in Bai Wujue’s father’s skin, Lin Xi swaggered into the Wushi Hall. After evading the soldiers’ gaze, he swiftly removed the disguise, photographed it, and dissolved it.

At Bai Wujue’s mother’s door, he deftly picked the lock and entered. Under her shocked gaze, a single swift stroke severed her head.

After dissolving the body again, Lin Xi exhaled deeply. The mission was now ninety percent complete; only the final infiltrator remained.