Hunger Fire Burns (Part 1)

Drugs... pharmaceutical manufacturing!

Xie Junping was not completely stupid. Once he wrapped his head around it, his mood only worsened.

Quantum Corporation was fucking leaving people no way to survive!

A considerable portion of the Xie family's business lay in the production and sale of cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, and their strength was solid. But compared with Quantum Corporation, one of the world's top three giants by market capitalization, they still lacked confidence.

Quantum Corporation had risen rapidly after the war. In the early 1990s, building on Prototype Format Theory, it proposed the concept of Burners, single-handedly created the Deep Blue Platform, and launched the Deep Blue Walker. It changed the nature of humanity's war against Aberrant Species and swiftly reclaimed vast stretches of traditional human territory. In that regard alone, it deserved to be called a great company that had changed the world.

Anyone with sense knew that while Quantum Corporation appeared to be focusing on weapons platforms, the essence of its research was actually a major breakthrough in life sciences. Its accumulation in related fields was unquestionably among the best in the world.

And now, this capital giant was finally extending its reach into cutting-edge pharmaceuticals—the pharmaceutical companies backed by the Xie family were probably about to panic for a while.

But on further thought, for any qualified capitalist, reliable advance information was an astonishing fortune in itself.

Seeing Xie Junping staring blankly, Zhang Yingying folded her arms and sneered.

"Yang Gu, was it worth it?

"Worth it. Absolutely worth it!"

Xie Junping had always treated his pride as something to sell. With a grinning face, he lightly slapped himself. "Yingying, I owe you a huge favor. I'll remember your kindness for the rest of my life..."

Zhang Yingying's little face was so tender it seemed water could be squeezed from it, but she was fundamentally impervious to blades and bullets. She did not even raise an eyelid. "Fine. A fifty percent increase in this year's fees, then? I'll thank Boss on your behalf."

Xie Junping immediately wilted and hurriedly changed the subject. "Right, does Quantum Corporation have a grudge against Ronan? That Prototype Format Theory..."

Zhang Yingying replied lazily, "No matter how much academic misconduct Yan Hong committed, the results he sold to Quantum Corporation are an established fact. Compared to a capital conglomerate, an individual is insignificant. Quantum Corporation won't care about an ant like him. Stop scaring yourself, okay?"

Xie Junping was not genuinely concerned about that. It merely reminded him of another question. After hesitating for a long while, he finally spoke. "Ronan has been taken onto a warship now. Do you think he might..."

"If you're worried he'll sell you out, just say so."

Zhang Yingying sneered. "Though selling you out would be perfectly normal, apparently he hasn't. According to reliable sources, he hasn't said a word since being detained."

"Really?" Xie Junping was somewhat doubtful. By common sense, Ronan had no reason to take the blame for him.

Zhang Yingying spread her hands. "You'll never know what a Dark Hero bent on leaving his name in history is thinking. Like the video..."

"The video?"

"Yes, the automatically recorded security footage from your five-hundred-million-credit Phantom. Did you really think the police wouldn't retrieve it?"

"Ah? Ah!" Only then did Xie Junping realize, his face draining of color. "Then, then, then..."

Zhang Yingying sighed. "By the time you realized, the police files would probably have gathered dust! Relax, it was already deleted."

Xie Junping pressed his palms together and repeatedly thanked her. "Good thing you were so thorough, Yingying."

"I have no need to claim someone else's credit... That was another good deed by the Dark Hero."

"Fuck, what righteousness!"

This time, Xie Junping was truly shocked. The vehicle being registered in his name was an indisputable fact. As long as Ronan cooperated with the police and told the truth, together with the recorded footage, clearing himself of suspicion would have been effortless.

Yet Ronan had chosen to delete the footage and keep his mouth shut, giving Xie Junping room to maneuver. That was an enormous favor!

Xie Junping racked his brains but could not understand how Ronan could go so far. In the end, he could only sigh.

"Righteousness. Unmatched righteousness!"

That was what he said, but at that moment, Xie Junping was considering whether he could simply go with the flow and make the Dark Hero take the blame properly.

Compensation afterward could always be discussed...

But on second thought, whether it was making someone take the blame or framing them, there would inevitably be more steps involved, and the uncertainty would rise sharply.

The Phantom hovercar was registered under his name, after all. No matter what, it would be difficult for him to wash himself clean as a White Lotus.

And then there was Ronan—those eerie eyes. For no reason at all, Xie Junping felt a chill in his heart and could not gauge where things stood.

"Yingying, what do you think..."

"What, thinking crooked thoughts?"

"No, nothing like that!"

Thinking it over, Xie Junping found those words hard to say anyway. He simply stomped his foot hard. Forget it, forget it. The other guy had already gone this far. He could not chicken out either. He would get him out first, then worry about the rest.

Well, until then, he could only ask the Dark Hero to keep being righteous!

The Ronan of "unmatched righteousness" was sitting alone in a corner. The metal plating behind and beneath him was ice-cold, and there were no markings anywhere. The brutal, chilling hardness unique to a warship pressed against his heart.

Ronan quickly digested similar "mental foreign objects," but the others in the same compartment did not find it so easy. Every one of them was visibly restless.

No one had expected an entirely ordinary public-security incident to end with them all being hauled onto a military vessel and locked up.

At first, these rich kids had shouted about following procedure and calling lawyers. But after more than an hour passed, they did not even hear an echo. Outside the sealed compartment, only cold combat robots stood guard. Their thick Riot Guns looked painful just to behold.

Eventually, the dozen or so of them could only stare at one another, gradually quieting down.

Ronan hung his head, his breathing faint to the point of seeming nonexistent.

It was exactly eight in the morning. Normally, Ronan would already be in class waiting for lessons to begin, and he would certainly have eaten breakfast enough for at least five people—maintaining the structure of the "container" came at a steep cost and required a substantial amount of energy.

At present, Ronan could only eat, converting food into energy through humanity's most traditional chemical process to replenish what he consumed. He had also made some extra preparations, such as the energy bars in his pocket.

But today's accident had made him use up those energy bars early, leaving him with no way to replenish himself. As his usual mealtime passed, Ronan felt as though a black hole had opened in his stomach, endlessly squeezing energy from his flesh and blood.

Under normal circumstances, his hunger would not have been so severe. But the reason he had been brought onto the Transport Ship forced Ronan to pay an additional price.

Ronan had been forcibly detained on suspicion of "illegally carrying prohibited drugs." Although the police had no time to interrogate or process him, simple procedures such as collecting a urine sample had been forcibly carried out soon after boarding.

This was a mandatory procedure. There was no arguing against it.

Ronan could swear to heaven and earth that he was one hundred percent not an addict, one hundred percent had never touched the "drugs" in the case, and one hundred percent was not part of Xie Junping's circle of shady friends.

But the problem was that the entire syringe of medication he had injected before leaving home that morning contained an absolutely off-the-charts proportion of prohibited substances! Perhaps the combined amount of prohibited substances in everyone present would not even equal a fraction of his own.

If things continued according to that logic, Ronan would truly have mud splattered on his pants—no matter how he tried, he would never be able to explain himself.

That was why, the moment the incident occurred, Ronan had deliberately activated Big Eater's skill, accelerating his body's metabolism with all his strength.

For Ronan, time sped up.