Junior Electrician Fu Qinghai

Fu Qinghai exhaled, pulling himself back to reality.

That shard of glass—the other party had used the reflection from that piece of glass to see him.

His position was therefore easy to determine: diagonally behind Fu Qinghai, in the same direction Peibo had crawled from.

Fu Qinghai turned to face that direction, took the stun baton from his back, gripped it, and slowly retreated.

He weighed his words and asked, "Excuse me, who are you?"

The eye he had seen in the glass reflection was undoubtedly a human eye.

If it was a human and could communicate, that was better than encountering some bizarre Warp creature.

"Hmph." The gruff voice let out a scoff. "Want to know? Come over here and talk."

Fu Qinghai thought to himself, then why don't you come over here and talk to me?

Fu Qinghai slowly retreated, moving away from the direction of the voice.

...Could it be that you can't come over?

Having confirmed this suspicion, Fu Qinghai continued to retreat until he was behind a half-open bulkhead door, ensuring that no reflection from any glass shards could see him.

He raised his voice and said, "This... uh, sir, I mean no harm, nor do I intend to offend. I am a law-abiding citizen of the Empire, a resident of the 17-974th colonial planet Cheslatan. My name is Cedric."

"I was just passing through and inadvertently disturbed you... please, don't mind me."

"Kukuku..." The voice emitted a hoarse, grating laugh. "Passing through, and then just happened to swipe something from me on your way back?"

"I am only trying to understand the situation, sir, just trying to understand." Fu Qinghai responded loudly while shuffling into the bulkhead doorway.

"There is an automated defense turret in the corridor, the kind that is still operational. If you aren't afraid, feel free to head a bit further that way," the voice said lazily.

Hm? Fu Qinghai faced the dark corridor behind the bulkhead, unable to see anything, so he gently twisted the flashlight at the end of his stun baton.

Deep in the dark corridor, a thin red light suddenly ignited, instantly locking onto the flashlight in Fu Qinghai's hand.

Damn it!

Fu Qinghai scrambled out of the bulkhead, looking quite disheveled.

The red light extinguished along with his movement.

"Kukukuku..." The hoarse, grating laugh sounded again. "Poor little mouse, scurrying and hiding."

Although his movements were clumsy, Fu Qinghai had not lost his cool.

In that instant when the flashlight illuminated the passage behind the bulkhead, besides the beam of red light from the depths of the darkness, he had also seen fresh, shattered remains of a corpse in the corner of the corridor.

Human bodies shattered by large-caliber turrets probably looked just like that, Fu Qinghai guessed.

That person kept talking, yet he heard no footsteps, and the distance from which the voice originated felt constant.

He clearly saw me first, yet he cannot come over.

He is trapped!

Having reached this conclusion, Fu Qinghai was no longer panicked. He slowly sat down on the ground and caught his breath.

The voice also fell silent.

Fu Qinghai casually picked up a piece of scrap metal and threw it at the pile of glass near the corner. With a "clack," he prevented the mysterious person from continuing to observe him through the glass reflections.

By analyzing the angle of the reflection, Fu Qinghai roughly guessed the mysterious person's location.

The entire warship was currently in a tilted state; the original floor had become a wall, and the original wall had become the floor. To Fu Qinghai's left was a collapsed bulkhead and steel corridor bridge, a ruin filled with debris and a half-open door.

To his right was a tall, wide gate. Judging by the charred textiles and shattered stained glass, it seemed to be a small auditorium or similar space. It was much more spacious than the area to his left, but because Peibo's corpse had been crawling away from that direction, Fu Qinghai had been afraid to go there.

Just as Fu Qinghai sat on the ground thinking, "Zzzzt," the end of a thick cable in the corner sparked, bringing a pale light to the gloomy space.

Fu Qinghai looked down at the stun baton in his hand.

"Pop!" In the sea of consciousness derived from the electronic soul of Iron Man, a bubble burst.

There were sparks, which meant some of the warship's power supply equipment was still running... Fu Qinghai slowly unscrewed the flashlight from the end of the stun baton, then dismantled the outer casing of the baton, revealing the battery and voltage transformer inside. His train of thought became increasingly clear.

After removing the battery, he manually modified the circuit components of the stun baton. Fu Qinghai stood up and walked toward the thick cable that was sparking. He wrapped his hands around the insulation, gathered all his strength, and gave it a hard tug. "Clatter," accompanied by the sound of shifting debris, a thick, long black cable was pulled out of the ruins by Fu Qinghai.

Fu Qinghai looked at the thick cable, which was as wide as an adult's arm, and the metal stun baton, which was only as thick as a standard steel pipe.

Fu Qinghai, who didn't even have a basic electrician's license, had a vague idea in his mind—he just felt he could connect the two.

While Fu Qinghai was busy tinkering with the cable, the gruff, grating voice remained silent, no longer harassing him with words.

He didn't know if the man was tired or just found it uninteresting.

Fu Qinghai ignored him and continued with his work.

A quarter of an hour later.

Fu Qinghai dragged the cable with great effort, holding the stun baton at the end of the wire, and walked with firm steps toward the large gate from which Peibo's corpse had crawled.

Fragments of information swirled in his mind: "Modified stun baton, external power supply, based on the load of the transformer and circuit board, weapon durability: one use."

His preliminary judgment was that it would burn out after one use.

Fu Qinghai thrust the baton around the corner!

The interior of the warship was deathly quiet; there was no storm of bullets as he had imagined.

Fu Qinghai poked his head out, then immediately pulled it back.

It remained silent, with none of the whistling sounds of blades cutting through the air that he had anticipated.

Finally, Fu Qinghai summoned his courage and lunged forward.

He saw it clearly!

Not far ahead, a giant of a man with a scarred, fleshy face and Eastern features was slumped against the corridor bridge.

He was looking at Fu Qinghai with an expression that suggested he was watching a complete idiot.