Chapter 206: Sneaking In, Deep Into Enemy Territory

Should she tell Gu Xu?

Bian Changxi thought of how Gu Xu had left her behind to go to the giant ship on his own, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “No need. I’ll be back soon. I just want to clear up a few things, it’s not like I’m looking for trouble.”

Besides, she had her farm, which made moving around alone both convenient and safe. Most importantly, this time it might involve a reborn person, and she didn’t want anyone else to know the secret of her rebirth.

She glanced up at the sky. “It’s already dark, and curfew will start soon. You’d better head home.” There were hardly any people left on the streets; everyone was hurrying home. If you got caught outside when the six o’clock curfew started because you didn’t make it in time, you’d have nowhere to cry.

She flagged down an empty taxi. The driver was about to head home himself, so he was happy to pick up a fare at this hour. “Where to, ladies? All the other taxis have gone back by now, I’m the only one still waiting for passengers. But if you’re going too far, I can’t take you—if I can’t get home before curfew, the fine would ruin me.”

The driver rattled on, but Bian Changxi caught the main point. It made her hesitate a bit. She pulled Chen Yisha aside and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t go home tonight. Those two are dead, but you’re going home safe and sound—someone might come looking for you. Why not stay at Lin Rongrong’s place for the night?”

Chen Yisha was touched by how thoughtful she was. “Alright, I’ll stay at Rongrong’s tonight. You be careful, okay?” She turned to the driver. “Sir, can you take us to Jiangcheng Residential Area, Xinfeng Quyuan?”

Jiangcheng was a good area—safe, wide streets, streetlights, and not far from her own home. The driver agreed happily. Bian Changxi watched as the car drove away, then turned and melted into the dusk.

Bian Changxi lived in the B district of a villa complex. The security at the gates was already tight—if you weren’t a resident, you couldn’t get in unless a resident brought you. The A district was even more exclusive, with even stricter security.

Looking at the heavily guarded luxury apartment complex under the night sky, Bian Changxi couldn’t help but grumble inwardly. How did that old geezer rate a place like this? She remembered his name was Huang... Huang Lao’er, right? Just a former government official, but somehow he’d managed to get a key civilian role in the base. Still, that shouldn’t be enough to get him into the A district.

Actually, the A district, despite its reputation as the highest tier in the base, wasn’t the most comfortable or luxurious. Apart from the research institute, administrative building, and grain storage, the residential area itself was just a bunch of ten-plus-story apartment buildings with only a few lights on—not nearly as nice as a villa.

Of course, deep inside the apartment complex were a few standalone houses with their own yards—people like Zhuge Yunma definitely lived there, as did deputy commanders Ge Jianhua and Xu Chang. Was Huang Lao’er really their neighbor?

With these questions in mind, she watched the checkpoint from the shadows. There was no way she could get in from the front. She looked around—no cars in sight, so hitching a ride was out of the question.

That left only one option: climbing the wall.

Bian Changxi circled around until she found the weakest point in the defenses. She laid some vines on the ground, then slowly, quietly, and stealthily crawled forward, getting right up to the guards’ feet. The leaves brushed against them, and in that instant she activated her power. All the guards froze, their expressions going blank and dazed. Taking advantage of the moment, she slipped past them, pushing off the railing with her foot and vaulting over.

The railings weren’t even that high.

She knew there were surveillance cameras inside, often hidden where people wouldn’t notice. Outsiders might think they could get away with anything here, but Bian Changxi wouldn’t make that mistake. As soon as she landed, she crouched in the bushes, motionless, both hiding herself and searching for the cameras.

Found one!

There was a lens hidden in the crook of a tree, glinting in the dark.

Usually, there wouldn’t be more than one camera in a given area. She’d helped set up some of the base’s systems during construction, so she knew a bit about where cameras were placed. To be safe, she stuck to moving within the small area covered by each camera, hiding again whenever she was about to leave that zone and searching for the next one.

Luckily, she was a wood-type ability user, so she could sense things through the trees and easily spot the cameras. So, though she moved in fits and starts, she quickly reached the standalone houses.

She didn’t know who lived in which house.

She found a spot, lay down, and pressed her hands to the ground, letting her energy seep into the soil as she cautiously probed ahead.

There might not be experts everywhere, but she couldn’t afford to be careless.

The first house was quiet. Someone was cleaning on the first floor, and there was a secret conversation happening in a study on the second. In another room—well, there was a man and two women doing that sort of thing. The man’s aura was familiar—it was Zhuge Qian.

So this was the Zhuge family’s house.

The second house had a huge basement, with walls so thick she could barely get through. She probed discreetly and sensed the presence of zombies.

Was that Ge Han? Ge Jianhua was bold, keeping his zombie son right at home. Wasn’t he afraid the neighbors or his superiors would notice?

She shook her head and moved on to the next house, but this time, almost immediately, she sensed something was off—as if she was being watched. She’d been discovered!

She quickly pulled her power back. Halfway through, she realized something and abruptly cut off her connection to her energy. The effort left her pale, and she immediately hid inside her farm space.

Not long after she disappeared, a tall, thin, cold-eyed man hurried over. His eyes were bloody and filled with surprise—it was that Liu guy. He knelt and searched the area carefully but found nothing. He was both shocked and suspicious—he was sure he’d sensed someone here, but they’d vanished without a trace.

After a moment’s hesitation, he moved on to search elsewhere, but secretly ordered his men to keep a close watch on this spot.

Meanwhile, inside the farm, Bian Changxi patted her chest and let out a breath.

She was sure that aura just now belonged to Liu. This guy was really something—she’d been so careful, and no one else had noticed, but he had. Not only had he noticed, he’d even tracked her energy back here. If she hadn’t cut the connection and hidden quickly, she’d probably have been caught.

But did his presence mean that house belonged to Huang Lao’er?

It was a bit of a stretch—maybe Liu lived there himself, or was just visiting someone else.

Still, Bian Changxi could only steer her guess in the direction she needed—otherwise, what reason did she have to sneak into that house? She didn’t want this whole trip to be for nothing.

Of course, the problem now was that she didn’t know if anyone was outside, or when it would be safe to leave.

Unfortunately, her farm didn’t have an “external view” function yet. She remembered that in her previous life, it only became available in the sixth year after the apocalypse—being able to see everything happening outside while inside the farm.

Thinking this, she knew she couldn’t rush. If she went out and they were still there, she’d be walking right into a trap.

She decided to wait ten minutes before leaving the farm.

Thanks to her liberal use of crystal cores, the farm had changed a lot in the past twenty days.

First, time inside the farm now passed at twice the speed of the outside world. So if she waited ten minutes outside, it was twenty minutes inside.

Second, the farm had expanded again. Now, on either side of the stream, there were five mu (about 0.8 acres) each of farmland and pasture. On the farm side, she had two mu of rice, one mu of wheat, one mu of cotton, and half a mu of pine trees and other crops. The rest included half a mu of nearly ripe corn, and then all sorts of vegetables.

The green rice and wheat, the tall, dark green corn, the neat rows of vegetables, and the young fruit trees along the stream—all were vibrant and full of life.

On the pasture side, chickens and ducks roamed free, and she’d even added geese. She’d gotten two local puppies—clumsy and dopey-looking, always playing together or just sitting around all day like little farm guardians.

By chance, she’d gotten a female yellow cow, pairing it with the bull she already had, so she’d never have to worry about calves or beef again. Unfortunately, the dairy cow was still alone. Its calf was nearly grown and hardly nursed anymore, so the cow’s milk production was dropping and would soon stop. Luckily, a pregnant ewe had just given birth to a lamb, and the new mother was producing fresh sheep’s milk. Bian Changxi wasn’t picky—though the cow seemed a bit unhappy about it.

In the stream, she’d stocked some crabs, freshwater shrimp, crayfish, crucian carp, and grass carp from a local shop, even two nearly dead yellow croakers. Now, all these creatures had grown and were thriving in the water.

Besides these changes, the old two-story farmhouse had also been upgraded—now it looked much more upscale, though it was still far from the cozy, white European-style villa she wanted. She hadn’t decorated much, just put in a bed, table, and chairs. Sometimes she’d come in to sit, and she’d thrown together a basic kitchen.

Bian Changxi never wasted a moment as she surveyed her farm, growing more satisfied the more she looked. But this only made her more wary of other reborn people.

It was this very farm that had once attracted envy, and it wasn’t just her who knew about it. That was a bad feeling—she had to root out whoever it was.

She ate a little to fill her stomach, changed clothes, pulled a thin black wool hat over her ears, put on a mask, and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt. Her face was almost completely covered. When the time was right, she left the farm, alert and cautious.

She reappeared at the same spot. Going from the bright farm to the pitch-black night outside, she pressed herself to the ground, not daring to move, scanning her surroundings. Only when she was sure it was safe did she slowly get up.