The tall mercenary standing in front looked down and patted Hao Ren on the shoulder as he sighed. "It's such a ridiculous era, isn't it?"
A blonde girl had been crushed under the rubble; she was long dead. She had suffered from blood clots and penetrating trauma in her chest as well as abdomen. One could see through her wound to the other side of the ground. Flesh and blood surrounded the wound. There were also some cable-like objects, and upon closer look, the cables were actually growing together with her flesh. The maiden lay under the rubble, and her hollow eyes were wide open. It seemed that she was still looking up at the sky before she died. Her long hair, which was soaked in blood stuck to her face, adding to the bleakness of her death.
Hao Ren was speechless.
He found that the MDT's navigation signal came from the corpse. It was clear and accurate.
"MDT, do you know what you've become?"
"How the hell would I know?" the MDT still sounded b*tchy. "Dang it. All services have been rebooted, but I'm still unable to connect to the sensors. How did you come in this time? Why is it different from the previous teleportation?"
"...I guess this has to do with the changes in your sensory model. You're now a... dead body."
The MDT's scream cut through his brain. "What are you talking about?"
Hao Ren did not know how to explain it. He could only shake his head and sigh. He bent down, trying to get the body of the human or maybe cyborg, out of the rubble. He beckoned to a soldier next to him. "Can you help lift the steel beam up..."
"You..." Nolan looked at the scene, her face somber. Her fingers were pale because she clutched the rifle with too much force. "You got it. Ulyanov, Carl, help him." She then turned to Hao Ren and said, "My condolences."
Hao Ren did not catch what she said as he was too focused on shifting the body below without causing more damage. After much effort, they finally pulled the blonde girl's body out together. Hao Ren took off his coat and covered the wound on the body. Then, he carried her on his back before he looked up at Nolan and smiled slightly. "Let's go. I don't know the way."
Hao Ren's face was stained with blood, and his smile looked extremely bizarre—at least, that was how Nolan felt. She had seen many hysterical expressions on the battlefield, of those who lost their loved ones, those of anger, craziness, or desperation; but, no one looked like this guy, whose face was stained with blood. He still smiled like the dead body did not concern him. She felt a certain madness in him.
In fact, Hao Ren really wanted to laugh...
The mercenary wearing a full-faced helmet could not help but speak. His name was Ulyanov. "You want to take her away?"
"Yeah," Hao Ren nodded bluntly. "It took me a while to find this fellow."
"I understand your feelings, but you need to bury her," Nolan said. She looked calm. "She is dead. Can't you see it?"
Hao Ren froze for a moment, then realized they had a misunderstanding. However, he could not explain the situation at all. He could only smile. "I have to carry this body for some special reasons. And to be honest, she's not dead yet. Believe it or not, I'm still chatting with her."
It was better for him not to say it. All eyes were on him at that moment—things had gotten even more complicated. Several mercenaries who were accustomed to the sight of life and death could not help but look away. They had to be thinking that this man was very sad. He lost his loved one; he had probably gone crazy…
Ulyanov's face was covered with his helmet, but he patted Hao Ren on the shoulder. His voice was low, "You need to accept reality, or you're not going to hold on for long."
Hao Ren thought for a long moment but could not come out with a way to explain why he was doing what he was doing. In the end, he could only speak with a sullen face, implying that he was determined, "No matter what you say, I need to take her with me. You don't have to worry. I will carry her myself. I'll definitely not slow you down."
The mercenaries looked at him in sympathy. Hao Ren's blood froze, and he could not think of anything else. He could only get into a shouting match with the culprit telepathically, "You retard! I'm now thrown into the character of the tragic man, and to my horror, my match is you—a freaking brick!"
The MDT could not see the scene, but it could gauge the situation from its mental connection with Hao Ren. It still sounded b*tchy, "Take it easy. Maybe this is still not the worst situation."
"Could it be any worse?"
"Perhaps you could pass as a necrophile..."
Hao Ren was distraught, and he was tempted to throw the body off his back—just like how he would usually throw bricks. But he was wary that such an impulse would lead to an even greater misunderstanding, so he could only bite his tongue. "You can be b*tchy, but every time you swear, you'll have to account for it when I get back!"
The MDT finally quieted down. Nonetheless, Hao Ren could only enjoy half a second of serenity in his mind because the mercenaries standing next to him had no idea why he was so adamant on carrying the female corpse with him. Based on their logic, it had to be something like a 200,000-word tragic love story.
Oh, of course, they could also interpret him as a necrophile...
The disgruntled look on the face of the tall mercenary, whose name was Carl, obviously indicated that it was not smart for him to bear the load on the move. However, Nolan waved her hand at the soldier. "Leave him alone! Let him carry her."
Carl frowned. "If you meet rogues or rangers..."
Nolan glanced at Hao Ren and walked away. "The exfiltration vehicle will arrive soon. Don't get into a fight before that. You two new recruits, check and see if there's anything we can reuse. Others, come with me. Get ready to move."
The mercenaries responded in a series of scattered voices. The two young men ran to the dead soldiers and retrieved a few pieces of equipment. The equipment showed "Access Denied" on their panels but Ulyanov took them and fiddled with them for a while. "Bring them back to the professor for a reset. Human stuff, easy peasy."
It seemed that despite the weapons were identity-authentication-enabled it could not stop from being hacked. The mercenaries on the battlefield were good hackers.
Hao Ren carried the MDT that had turned into a girl's corpse (how strange it is) on his back and followed the mercenaries embarking on a journey crossing the war-torn city. He was trying to understand the current situation of the planet and see whether there were signs of the First Born or other guardians. So he was listening to the conversation of the mercenaries and trying to piece the information together, at the same time preventing himself from reacting or saying something suspicious unwittingly.
But his silence backfired. People began to misinterpret his quietude with some imagination—especially the tear-jerking scene of him carrying the body of a blond girl who had died tragically. Ulyanov deliberately walked beside Hao Ren; the mercenary, who had never revealed his face, seemed to be the most warm-hearted of the seven-member team. He asked casually, "How did you two meet each other?"
Hao Ren was talking with the MDT in his mind, discussing why it had turned into a corpse. Hearing Ulyanov's question, he said, "It's part of the perks."
Ulyanov was startled and then sighed unnaturally. "You guys truly came from the ultrconservative jurisdiction of the Naturals... never did I expect the persecution of the second generation Evolved was so serious already…"
Then he looked at the corpse of the young girl on the back of Hao Ren. "But then you are willing to do so much for her... It seems that everything is possible in this world."
Hao Ren could not bear to imagine how much imagination this soldier had in his mind. But he could not help it. He did not know how to explain his rational of doing what he was doing. He could only let their imagination ran wild and he could not have cared less.
Hao Ren's silence deepened the mercenary's misunderstandings. The mercenary smiled and his voice hoarse. "Everyone is struggling in this difficult time, isn't it? Looks like you decided to flee your homeland because you couldn't stand it anymore. Only then did you decide to flee... But unfortunately, Lawless District is more dangerous than you imagine. Life in the extremist city is hard but as long as you can obey them, you will live. But here, accident…"
Ulyanov glimpsed the bloodstained blonde hair on the shoulders of Hao Ren in his peripheral vision. He immediately held his tongue. "I'm sorry, I talk too much."
Hao Ren: "..."
For the first time in his life, he became the subject of gossip.
And the object was a brick.
He felt like he would rather die.