Chen Yi looked at the two freighters pulling alongside each other on-screen, then at the weapons in the hands of the crews on both ships.
Well, damn. This was either smuggling or dealing flour.
"Reporting illegal crimes is everyone's responsibility."
"At worst, I'll earn enough consciousness waves to build a super robot—an Iron Man bodyguard to protect me."
Thinking of the consciousness waves he had nearly exhausted building the new drone today, as well as the consequences of so much flour entering the country.
Chen Yi, who believed his conscience was still intact, decisively opened his livestreaming app and started a broadcast.
"666, Streamer, you're still flying planes in the middle of the night?"
"Look at the background. You're out at sea, right?"
"Quick, quick, quick! Charge into space again!"
"When will the streamer's engine ship? I've been waiting so hard my eyes are about to turn into engine-watching stones."
"Ever since I started watching the streamer's broadcasts, my back doesn't ache and my legs don't hurt. The treatment works great."
The moment the stream went live, a crowd of night owls who had enabled stream notifications poured in, excitedly sending comments.
At Jinling University, Shao Kaiwang, a sophomore who had already secured graduate school recommendation and was chatting with his professor while asking questions, suddenly felt the phone beside him vibrate twice as its screen lit up.
Seeing this, the professor teased him, "Girlfriend calling?"
"Please don't make fun of me, Professor. I've never known the sorrows of having a girlfriend."
Shao Kaiwang took out his phone, glanced at it, and said happily, "The streamer I told you about yesterday has gone live."
"Let's see."
This piqued the professor's interest, and he gestured for Shao Kaiwang to open the stream so they could watch together.
Yesterday, Shao Kaiwang and the others had brought over photos they had taken while tracking the drone, along with recordings of the livestream, to ask for his advice.
Although his first reaction had been to be stunned by how ugly the drone looked.
He was soon drawn to its unusual aerodynamic layout.
After carefully analyzing and studying it, he had gained many fresh ideas and inspirations.
"Night flight during a livestream, altitude 3,800 meters, currently circling at low speed."
Shao Kaiwang opened the stream, checked the parameters displayed on the avionics interface first thing, and reported the flight status.
"An altitude of 3,800 meters? Has civilian drone technology become this advanced?"
The professor sighed in amazement, then suddenly seemed to spot something and pointed at the image displayed on the radar feed.
"Wait, zoom in on this image. Look here."
At that moment, it was not just the professor who noticed the problem. The viewers in the livestream also caught on.
"Holy shit, what are those two ships doing down there?"
"Are those real guns?"
"6666, a late-night gathering at sea. I believe they're innocent!"
"Look, someone is carrying out boxes. They're full of cash and flour!"
"Streamer, are you keeping watch for them?"
"That much flour? Keeping watch for them is seriously criminal."
"Extremely criminal!"
The viewers' shouts seemed to be celebrating Chen Yi's successful descent into criminality.
Chen Yi looked at the comments, glanced at the rapidly soaring consciousness waves, and took out his phone with a speechless expression.
"What do you mean, keeping watch for them is criminal?"
"Can't you see that I'm reporting criminals?"
As he spoke, Chen Yi briskly dialed the police hotline.
"Hello, is this 110? I found people trading flour. The quantity is huge, at least dozens of kilograms."
"Flour?"
The operator froze for a moment, then immediately understood and hurriedly picked up a pen and paper. "Where did you discover this? What is the exact location? Also, please hide immediately and ensure your own safety."
"Don't worry, I'm very safe. As for the trading location... 24.35 degrees north latitude, 118.05 degrees east longitude."
Chen Yi glanced at the avionics interface and reported the drone's current coordinates.
The operator searched the coordinates and found that they corresponded to a stretch of ocean at least fifty kilometers from the nearest land.
"Sir, filing a false police report can result in detention."
"I'm not making a false report," Chen Yi replied.
"You're making this call from Penghai City, but the transaction is dozens of kilometers offshore. How did you discover it?
Sir, I am formally warning you: if you continue making false reports, I will have you detained."
"I found it while test-flying my drone."
Chen Yi said helplessly, "I'm a drone enthusiast. Isn't it perfectly normal for me to discover criminals dealing flour at sea?
If you still don't believe me, I'm livestreaming right now.
Livestream ID: 04198. You can check the stream to verify it!"
As he spoke, Chen Yi controlled the drone into a dive, bringing it to a point one thousand meters above the two freighters.
After three adjustments, the camera, with its billions of stacked pixels, clearly captured the faces of those aboard under the moonlight.
By then, the operator had also found Chen Yi's livestream.
When she saw the flour being exchanged on-screen, along with the weapons in the hands of those aboard.
The operator froze for a moment, then hurriedly called the chief's phone the next second.
"Chief, I received a report from a concerned citizen. While test-flying his drone, he discovered people trading flour at sea. The amount is huge, at least dozens of kilograms!"
"Is the intelligence confirmed?"
The chief, who was still working overtime at night, could not help but look stunned upon hearing the operator's report.
"It is confirmed. This concerned citizen is livestreaming it as well. Livestream ID: 04198. More than eight hundred thousand viewers are watching—oh no, they spotted it!"
The operator reported rapidly.
But before she could finish speaking, she saw someone on the ship suddenly take out a satellite phone.
After speaking for only a few moments, the man abruptly looked up at the sky.
With a shout.
Everyone's weapons angrily aimed toward the sky, spitting flames and bullets with a rattling barrage.
The sudden development made the operator cry out instinctively, "Quick, pull the drone up! Don't let them shoot it down.
We have already contacted the local maritime bureau and armed police. We need you to provide positioning assistance. They'll arrive soon."
"It's fine. I'm a thousand meters in the air."
Chen Yi, who had been interacting with the chat and farming consciousness waves, heard the cry from his phone and looked toward the radar feed.
While admiring the group's fury, he did not forget to control the drone and take close-up shots of each of them as they raised their heads to fire.
In this age of facial recognition, with these photographs.
Even if they escaped today, these photos could still become their death warrants.
After firing for over ten seconds.
The people on the ships seemed to realize that this kind of shooting could do nothing to the drone in the sky.
Everyone put away their weapons, and the ships began separating and sailing away in opposite directions.
At the same time, bags of the flour they had just traded were taken out, sliced open, and thrown into the sea.
"Fuck, Streamer, they're running! They're destroying the evidence!"
"Don't let them get away!"
"Go, go, go! Streamer, stop them! I'll donate a hundred rockets!"
The comments immediately exploded.
Dense donation effects kept rising across the screen, while the consciousness waves from the system program soared at breakneck speed.
"Don't worry. They won't get away!"
Looking at the people fleeing the scene while destroying evidence, Chen Yi picked up his phone and asked the operator, "If I hurt them while stopping them, that isn't illegal, right?"
The operator looked at the chief, who had already arrived. After receiving his affirmative answer, she hurriedly replied, "Don't worry. The current evidence is already sufficient to prove that these are extremely vicious flour dealers."
"Stopping them would be assisting the police in cracking down on criminals. It is completely legal."
"That'll do."
Chen Yi smiled and tapped on his keyboard.
The radar scanned the surrounding waters, confirming that there were no other fishing boats or freighters within several kilometers.
The next second, Chen Yi pushed the drone's throttle to maximum, pulled the control stick, and repeatedly pressed the rudder pedals.
Under Chen Yi's control, the drone first climbed rapidly, then plunged at extreme speed like a diving swallow.
The entire aircraft was like a bolt of lightning descending from the sky, slicing between the two freighters.
"Dangerous maneuver! Do not imitate this!"
When it was less than fifty meters from the freighters, Chen Yi shouted, pulled the control stick to level out from the dive, then slammed the throttle to the floor.
Boom!
Flames burst from the exhaust like a fiery meteor streaking through the night sky.
Layers of white mist appeared around it.
The fuselage seemed to blur for an instant, then broke through the speed of sound and blasted between the two freighters.
Rumble!
As the drone broke the sound barrier, air shockwaves spread in all directions.
A gale whipped up waves several meters high across the sea, while the people on deck destroying the flour screamed, clutched their ears, and collapsed onto the deck, rolling around in agony.
Before you continue