Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Kahel District is the only slum on the Imperial Star.

Observing the Imperial Star from the StarEye, one could spot a palm-sized area that stood out in stark contrast: a lifeless, yellow-gray patch amidst the silver-blue luminescence and technological splendor of a thriving planet.

It proved, as always, that disparity in development is an eternal truth.

Following the route mapped out on his cyber-brain, Lin Fu boarded the star rail to his destination.

Upon reaching the edge of the Kahel District, Lin Fu disembarked and proceeded on foot further into the area.

It was night, with the lights just beginning to shine, starkly delineating the two regions.

Donning a hat he had purchased casually, he cautiously navigated the dimly lit corners.

The Kahel District's existence within the Imperial Star was due to its inhabitants' refusal to relocate. Even though they had the capital to live decently on a secondary planet and the empire was willing to offer compensation, they insisted on dying on the Imperial Star.

Forcibly dispersing citizens was illegal, and neither the parliament nor the royal house wished to bear this burden, so the district was largely ignored.

Additionally, the residents here were extremely xenophobic, prone to violence at the slightest provocation. Ordinary residents on the outskirts were equally reluctant to engage with them.

Should they discover Lin Fu, an outsider, a beating was more than likely.

As for resistance.

Lin Fu glanced at his arms and legs and swiftly abandoned the idea.

He was here to save someone.

Compared to waiting for someone to faint in a peaceful area, it was much simpler here. He might just find someone severely injured in a fight around the corner, apply some medicine, or at worst, call a hovercar to take them to the hospital, and his first task would be complete.

In the dim environment, lacking energy stone supplies, few households had lights, leaving only a few old street lamps scattered about, powered by the Energy Bureau.

All sorts of noises, one after another, provided cover for Lin Fu's infiltration.

He entered an underground passage from behind an abandoned building, emerging on the other side and continuously advancing towards the central area.

After walking a few kilometers, his body began to protest, with pain shouting from the soles of his feet to his loins.

He had to find a concealed spot to crouch down and rest for a moment.

Suddenly, the system alerted him: [Host, there's someone lying in the ruins to your right rear, with faint vital signs detectable. Rescuing them should yield a high energy conversion.]

Lin Fu raised an eyebrow: "You can monitor the environment?"

System: [Within a radius of five meters centered on the host, I can monitor.]

Lin Fu: "Oh." He mulled over this in his mind, finding the feature quite useful, something to exploit in the future.

Following the system's guidance, he indeed found a person under the rubble, lying face down with a massive steel plate pressing on their back, barely visible except for the top of their head peeked through a gap.

For Lin Fu at the moment, the difficulty lay more in extracting the person than in how to resuscitate them.

He circled around for a while, spending half an hour to find a suitable tool. After finding the right leverage point, he exerted all his strength to pry, nearly exerting himself to the fullest, yet the steel plate didn't even tremble.

After pondering for a moment, he gripped the tool and crawled under the steel plate.

It was too dark inside, so he pulled out his light-brain and used the faint glow from the screen to illuminate and assess the trapped person's condition.

It was a man with unusually long hair, matted and tangled, covered in dust and grime.

Under the steel plate were broken stones, and a slab as long as a person pinned down half of his body, with the steel plate resting on top. The combined weight probably reached a ton, making it hard to imagine how a human could endure such pressure for an unknown length of time yet still maintain weak vital signs.

He moved some stones and stacked them on the end of the slab that was propped up, securing them after reaching a certain height, then reached out to feel the places where the man was pinned. There was a small gap between the arm and body.

He breathed a sigh of relief; it was still within an operable range.

As he pondered what he could possibly use at this stage, his hairs suddenly stood on end, and he felt a chilling sensation as if a wild beast was targeting the nape of his neck.

He abruptly turned around, meeting a pair of eyes, light brown in color, which under the dim light of the light-brain's screen, glinted amber, reminiscent of an animal's predatory eyes, bursting with untamed ferocity and murderous intent.

The two were extremely close; Lin Fu's head was near the man's shoulders, and with half of the man's body unscathed, he could easily break Lin Fu's neck with a simple lift of his hand.

Lin Fu didn't doubt for a second that he was capable of it.

He slowed his breathing, trying his best to appear harmless: "I'm here to rescue you, you're pinned under a steel plate."

The man stared at him quietly, his eyes unmoving, gauging the credibility of his words.

This standoff lasted only a moment, less than a minute even, but Lin Fu felt as if it had been ages, leaving his body stiff.

The man spoke in a hoarse voice, as if laced with grit: "...Guide?"

Lin Fu: "Yes."

The man mustered all his strength, and at the moment he received that answer, he closed his eyes again, and the oppressive aura that enveloped Lin Fu vanished instantly.

Lin Fu took a deep breath, not expecting that even a rescue could lead to such an encounter.

He lay there, waiting for a good while, ensuring the man was truly unconscious and wouldn't awaken. While reassured, he also felt an uncomfortable twinge of being underestimated.

Cursing inwardly, he couldn't afford to stop the work of his hands.

He continued to stuff stones into the gaps, observing the space beneath the slab,

space

and once assured, he began to move the man out.

Lin Fu wasn’t one for delicacy; the man’s brief resurgence had dispelled any reservations he might have had.

The fact that the man had the strength to wake meant it couldn’t be too serious.

He dragged out the half of the man’s body that was pinned, and as the supporting steel plate began to wobble and screech, a cloud of dust fluttered down, filling the air with a growing stench of blood.

Lin Fu hastened his efforts, enduring various discomforts and pains, gritting his teeth as he pulled the man free from the stones, catching a glimpse of a bright light in his peripheral vision that seemed to be the gleam of metal.

Tempted to take a closer look, he was suddenly urged by the system: [Host, hurry up, your makeshift support won't last more than five seconds!]

Lin Fu swiftly dragged the man out, rolling away with him just as the steel plate lost its balance in a thunderous collapse, its other end jutting high off the ground.

Lin Fu breathed heavily, the blood's stench in the air intensifying several-fold. Turning his head, he saw his right upper arm, sliced by the falling steel plate, bleeding profusely like a stream down his elbow.

Gritting his teeth, he tore off a piece of torn cloth, tightly wrapping it around his arm to stem the flow of blood, and propped up the man to quickly leave the scene.

Soon, people drawn by the loud noise gathered near the steel plate, shining lights on the large pool of blood on the ground, speculating: "Who's been fighting here?"

"Could it be someone from the outskirts sneaking in?"

"Humph, those cowards wouldn't dare."

Finding no explanation and no traces of outsiders after searching the area, the crowd dispersed.

*

As Lin Fu wavered between "taking the man to the hospital" and "bringing him back to his rental," the system informed him that what he hadn’t managed to pick up earlier was a military merit badge.

Lin Fu paused, reflecting for a moment before booking a hovercar on the star-net, destined for his rental.

After getting the man back to the rental, Lin Fu himself headed to the hospital.

Having sustained numerous injuries while rescuing someone, including a dislocated arm and substantial blood loss, the incredulity was clear on the treating doctor’s face, who repeatedly questioned whether he was a victim of sentinel abuse at home.

It was only after Lin Fu's persistent denials that the doctor reluctantly let him leave.

Declining treatment in the regenerative pod due to financial constraints, he cradled his bandaged arm, picked up his prescribed medicines, and headed home, only to find his small abode ransacked, lights ablaze in every room, belongings strewn about, and the storage room door ajar.

Frowning, he was about to tidy up when the system murmured, [Host, there's no intruder, it's the person you saved today.]

Lin Fu: "…"

Opening the door, he found the man leaning against the wall, eyes tightly shut, clutching an empty tube of nutrient solution in his left hand.

The man was covered in dust and grime; his right arm and leg were bent at odd angles, and the cloth covering his limbs was torn, revealing lacerated flesh oozing with beads of blood.

Resigned, Lin Fu set down the medicines, helped the man to the bathroom to strip and clean him in the tub, then moved him back to the bed to set his bones, apply medicine, and bandage him up.

Exhausted, he was drenched in sweat as if he had been fished out of water, his right arm's wound reopening, soaking red with blood.

He reapplied medicine after unwrapping the gauze; thanks to the potent effects of star-era medicine, the bleeding ceased almost immediately, with the edges showing signs of healing. With proper care, it would heal in a few days without leaving a scar.

As he wrapped the gauze, he studied the man on the bed.

Cleaned up, the man was strikingly handsome, with sharp features, broad shoulders, long legs, and an excellent physique.

Lin Fu eyed the man's muscular yet not overly exaggerated abs with envy, nudging the system, "When can you fulfill that optimization you mentioned?"

The system replied, [His current life signs are unstable; he could die at any moment. We must wait overnight for his condition to stabilize, then it can be done! Rest assured, host, given the severity of his injuries, the energy gained from the exchange will surely dispel the mental toxins, and there might even be a surplus to aid in the initial restoration of his psychic strength.]

Lin Fu, with downcast eyes, wiping the blood between his fingers, said, "Who said anything about optimizing psychic strength?"

System: […?]

"Use any remaining energy to optimize physical attributes. Once psychic strength returns to normal, it no longer needs attention."

System: [? But host, you are a guide. Only by enhancing your psychic strength can you save more people…]

Lin Fu interrupted, "No one ever decreed that guides can only serve off the battlefield and not on it."

Once he eliminates the mental toxins and initially enhances his physical attributes, he plans to enlist in the military academy.

After tending to his wounds and the disarrayed house, Lin Fu spent the night on the living room sofa.

Early the next morning, as dawn was breaking, the system notified him, "Vital signs confirmed stable, award distribution in progress..."

Lin Fu was jolted awake by the sound, his brain feeling as if it were being pierced by a steel needle from right to left, the pain so intense it rolled him off the sofa, drenched in cold sweat. The pain was sudden and without warning; before he could adjust, the steel needle seemed to impatiently burst forth its barbs, as if intent on grinding everything inside his skull to dust.

He arched his back, curling into a ball, moans of agony escaping his lips as intense cerebral pain triggered muscular spasms, causing his body to shake violently. While he restrained himself from crying out loud, he cursed inwardly with every profanity he knew.

Damn it, he hadn't expected it to be this painful.

Uncontrollably rolling on the floor, his dislocated arm and wounds hit the corner of a table, exacerbating his agony. His gums bled from the force of his clenched teeth, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth and smearing his face.

As the pain intensified, Lin Fu's consciousness began to blur, and by the end, he was numb to the sensation, still feeling as if he was engulfed in pain, to the point that the physical pain was neglected.

When Lin Fu regained consciousness, night had fallen. He weakly rose from the floor, first grabbing a tube of nutrient fluid to drink and regain some strength, then heading to the bathroom to clean himself up.

After stripping, he was surprised to find the palm-sized wound on his right arm had healed, leaving only a faint pink mark indicating new skin. His dislocated wrist had fully recovered, and other bruises and minor wounds had vanished without a trace.

After cleaning the blood off his body, he asked the system, "Has my body been optimized as well? Does saving one person yield so much energy?"

The system replied, "[All mental toxins have been thoroughly purged, and initial recovery is underway. The remaining energy was fully utilized for physical optimization. Upon assessment, the person you saved possesses immense energy, not equivalent to an ordinary person. An average person’s energy would barely suffice to purge mental toxins, let alone completely."

A hint of joy appeared on Lin Fu's face, finding the man increasingly pleasing to the eye as he treated his wounds.

After changing the man's dressings, Lin Fu placed several tubes of nutrient fluid by the bedside, left a note, locked the door, and departed.

He once again took the star rail to the Kahel region.

This time, he didn't experience the debilitating muscle soreness after walking a few kilometers.

The steel plate at the other end was tilted upwards; this time it was

much easier

than the rescue. He moved the broken stones aside, let the system direct him, and quickly located the badge left behind, digging it out from a pile of rubble.

The badge was hexagonal, made of an unknown material that remained unscratched even under heavy pressure, reflecting a faint golden light. It was engraved with the shape of the imperial interstellar territory, with a small pattern in the center that somewhat resembled a family emblem, though Lin Fu did not recognize it.

If he had the memories of this body, he might know, being the young master of a grand family after all.

Unfortunately, he only had fragments of memories.

He carefully stowed the badge, repacked the displaced stones to appear as if no one had been there, concealed his tracks along the way, and departed the way he came.

Shortly after his departure, a miniature probe descended upon the steel plate, scanning for information.

It detected a large, dried bloodstain on the ground, descended to collect a sample, and then silently vanished.

In the following period, Lin Fu refrained from embarking on adventures, instead gradually concealing his information, only venturing out when necessary to purchase equipment.

The man awoke on the third day.

Lin Fu was curled up asleep on the sofa, facing inward, covered with a thin blanket, revealing his slender, fragile shoulders and a pale neck.

The bedroom door opened, and Cheng Jiu leaned against the doorframe, his light brown eyes fixating on the pale neck, as murderous intent surged and then slowly dissipated.

He surveyed the room before approaching the sofa, bending over to scrutinize the appearance of this bold guide.

His gaze slid from the forehead to the nose, and then to the lips—just as he had imagined, a visage of restlessness.

If one were content, no guide would venture to such places.