I'll drive. Fasten your seatbelts.

Basement.

The space was filled only with wooden or iron furniture—no electrical appliances, not even a single material etched with a spirit rune.

Three children were huddled together in the corner.

The oldest girl appeared to be around ten, the youngest boy no more than five or six. Their clothes were clearly cut from adult garments, and they looked sallow and emaciated, suffering severe malnutrition.

Lu Chen felt something was amiss.

To secretly bear children on Scion Star, one had to overcome electronic sterilization, and raise them in an environment free from surveillance. Anyone capable of such a feat would have to be wealthy.

Ill-fitting clothes were understandable, but why were these children so undernourished and thin?

The man noticed Lu Chen’s frown and hurried to explain:

“There’s no way to buy children’s clothes or infant formula…”

Nearby, Aili seemed to have noticed something and quietly reminded Lu Chen:

“Captain, these children share no blood relation with the man and woman here.”

The man’s expression grew stiff, and he quickly explained again:

“I’m not the only one in Alice City having children. My own child has already been rescued. There are many children like this, all sent here to me… They deserve their freedom.”

Lu Chen countered, “Didn’t Big Sister permit citizens to leave freely? Why not just leave Scion Star to have children?”

The man looked helpless and sighed.

“That’s just propaganda. Adults can leave freely, but ninety percent of their assets are confiscated.”

Lu Chen chuckled—so it was merely a financial issue?

Scion Star takes ninety percent of your assets, not nine thousand, not nine hundred thousand, not nine million… That meant the poor could also leave.

Once outside the inner city of Scion Star, couldn’t they just work in Prison Port and quickly earn enough for passage?

“For true freedom, sacrificing ninety percent of one’s wealth is a small price, isn’t it?”

“It’s not just the ninety percent. You also need to spend a fortune greasing the palms of immigration officials. You know, Scion Star only appears to be fair—corruption is rampant to an outrageous degree.”

Lu Chen thought that, given Scion Star’s social system, unless Big Sister had fallen to some virus, corruption would never be tolerated.

“Isn’t Big Sister monitoring everything?”

The man lowered his voice even further.

“Big Sister is no longer human. She possesses a higher will, an ambition to transcend the mortal and become divine. Her neural network requires vast resources. I’m not questioning her, but perhaps she’s already infected by something and doesn’t realize… I can’t say more.”

Upstairs, a woman’s voice called down.

“Hurry up—you have to move quickly. Patrol boats will sweep through here soon. The tour car in the woods is about to be discovered.”

The man hurriedly led the three children away.

“Let’s go. The kids will hide in the trunk.”

They quickly stepped outside to the woods.

He opened the trunk of the tour car.

The three children were still hesitant.

Only when Aili gently patted their heads did they calm down.

Once everything was settled, Gloria extended her hand for payment.

“Three thousand spirit stones—hurry up!”

The man replied, “Once we’re off Scion Star, a ship will meet you.”

Gloria, dissatisfied, grumbled sullenly, “If I don’t get paid, I’ll come back and take your head!”

The three of them got into the car at once, started the engine, and sped off.

With the female guide driving, they had no choice but to fly through the forest to avoid the patrol boats.

“At what point were you caught last time you came here?” Lu Chen asked Gloria with curiosity.

Gloria cocked her head. “What do you mean ‘at what point’?”

“I mean, how far did you get in your mission before getting caught?”

“I was arrested sneaking into the city—charged with illegal sword-carrying, too.”

As expected of her!

Lu Chen was speechless.

“They say failure is the mother of success, but your failure is of no help to me.”

Gloria pouted and apologized on the spot, “Sorry, Mother was negligent.”

Lu Chen: “…”

Beside them, Aili looked around, sensing something was wrong.

“Captain, I think we’re being followed.”

Lu Chen had already noticed, and even pointed in several directions—front, back, left, and right.

“It’s not being followed. Several drones are surveilling us.”

“Big Sister?”

“Doesn’t seem like her.”

Saying this, Lu Chen switched seats with the guide’s synthetic body.

“I’ll drive. Buckle up.”

Moments later—

A beam of laser fire shot from behind the vehicle!

Yet, just before that moment, Lu Chen had already veered off the previous route, elegantly dodging the laser.

As if he’d predicted it.

He then dodged several more consecutive bursts of laser fire.

Gloria looked back and saw a blue-and-black patrol boat closing in through the trees.

“I see it! It’s a patrol boat—we’re done for. There’ll be more soon!”

Gloria panicked.

She had encountered the exact situation before.

These were all unmanned patrol boats.

She had taken down one, but another would appear, and another, until they were surrounded and overwhelmed, and eventually she was captured when her strength gave out.

This time, however, Lu Chen had already received an evasion guide. Only one patrol boat was pursuing them.

Level thirty.

“Don’t panic, it’s just one this time. Can you take it down barehanded if you jump out?”

“A trivial matter.”

“Just disable the engine—don’t touch the flight control system.”

Before Lu Chen even finished speaking, Gloria had already leapt from the car.

She landed expertly on a passing tree and hid among the branches.

When the patrol boat drew near, she pounced, dismantling the engine with her bare hands.

The patrol boat crashed to the ground with a thunderous roar!

Afraid reinforcements would come, she dove inside and smashed the radar and control panel…

Soon, Lu Chen circled back in the car.

He disembarked and entered the patrol boat.

Seeing the ruined flight control panel, Lu Chen cursed outright, “Next time, can you wait till I finish speaking before you act?”

Gloria feigned innocence, arguing, “You were speaking so softly—who could hear you?”

Lu Chen immediately dismantled the pilot’s panel and found the temporary memory unit inside.

The casing was cracked, but it was mostly intact.

“Good, the memory unit isn’t completely destroyed.”

He took the memory unit, got back in the car, changed direction, and drove deeper into the woods to a more concealed location.

The guide’s synthetic body took over driving.

Lu Chen used tools to open the inner layer of the memory unit, swapped it with the one from the vehicle, and used the car’s flight control system to read the internal data.

And only then did he discover—the patrol boat was infected!

It had broken away from Alice City’s security forces.

Phew… Gloria finally relaxed.

“So the Heart of the Galaxy virus is real.”

But Lu Chen frowned.

“No, this is a control and surveillance virus disguised as Heart of the Galaxy.”

He used the car’s flight control system to analyze the virus and found it had a superficial shell.

The inner core was something else entirely.

“No wonder it could evade Big Sister’s high-intensity scans for the Heart of the Galaxy!”

Gloria suddenly felt her brain couldn’t keep up.

“Who’s so bored they’d do this? Why attack us?”

Aili reminded them, “Could it be… related to the surveillance drones tracking us?”

At that moment, Lu Chen finally breached the virus defenses and accessed the stored information in the memory unit.

He suddenly turned to look at the swarm of fly-like micro drones.

In an instant, everything became clear…

“Damn it, it’s the Imperial Entertainment Weekly!”