A Mad Plan to Paralyze Skynet

"Drop--"

"Didi--"

Yun Jingheng stood at the entrance of the shelter, constantly fiddling with a device resembling a walkie-talkie in his hand.

What are you doing?

Yun Jingheng turned to look at the curious Wu Siduo.

"Ah, I'll adjust the instrument to measure the outside radiation level."

Wu Siduo took a few steps closer, tilting her head to look at the beeping little box in his hand.

"Where did you buy it? It's so ugly."

"... I made it myself in a rush, so I didn't care whether it looked good or not."

He glanced back casually, then nudged Wu Siduo with his elbow.

"Please call Grandpa Feng over here."

When Wu Siduo returned, there was another person with her.

Feng Wuyu strode after him, his messy reddish-brown hair resembling a half-burnt ember under the dim light of the shelter.

He saw Yun Jingheng squatting by the door, fiddling with the broken box, and his brows furrowed.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to rest and recover?"

Yun Jingheng did not answer.

He had his head down, his fingers gripping an extremely thin screwdriver, adjusting a tiny knob embedded in a groove on the side of the instrument.

The knob was so small it was almost invisible. Each time he turned it, the movement was only as thin as a hair. He would turn it once, pause for a moment, look at the dial, and then turn it again.

Feng Wuyu did not speak again.

He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the door frame, and waited patiently.

Wu Siduo looked around, wanting to speak but not daring to, and finally chose to quietly squat to the side, resting her chin on her hands, like a little audience member waiting for the play to begin.

"Beep--beep--beep--" The instrument's beeping finally stabilized, and the indicator stopped jumping around and stopped steadily on a mark slightly to the left of the center of the dial.

Yun Jingheng shoved the screwdriver into his pocket, stood up, and did so with swift, decisive movements. Then, because the movement aggravated his abdominal wound, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, but he quickly suppressed it.

He turned to face Feng Wuyu, grasped the handle of the instrument in his right hand, and handed it to Feng Wuyu.

Feng Wuyu subconsciously reached out and took it.

He looked down at the dented metal box in his hand, with a few loose wires sticking out from the seams.

Click.

The hydraulic lock emitted a dull thud.

Yun Jingheng slowly pushed open the heavy metal door, and a blinding white light pierced through the crack, pushing back the dim yellow light in the shelter corridor by several meters.

He looked at Feng Wuyu's puzzled expression and said, "Go for a walk, come back when the dashboard is completely past the red line, and then tell me how far you've gone."

Feng Wuyu blinked. "I... I'll go?"

"Should I go?"

Yun Jingheng leaned against the doorframe, his right hand still pressing against the wound on his abdomen. "Fine, anyway, if my mom asks later—"

"Alright, alright, alright!"

Feng Wuyu's brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly, and he waved his hand to interrupt him, "What the hell? The red line, right? Once you've crossed it, come back and I'll tell you how many steps you took—do you want the step count?"

"The number of steps would be best, accurate to each and every step. I'll measure your stride again later and convert it to meters."

Feng Wuyu stared at him for two seconds.

This kid even calculates his stride, which means that he had already decided who was the most suitable candidate before he even sent Wu Siduo to call for help.

The flame Martial Soul's resistance to radiation, the physical attributes of a veteran Titled Douluo, and even details like stride length were all taken into consideration in advance.

"... You're even more annoying than your father was when he was young." Feng Wuyu snorted heavily through his nose, turned around, and strode towards the door.

Yun Jingheng added calmly from behind him, "Thank you for the compliment."

Feng Wuyu paused for a moment, seemingly wanting to turn around and curse, but in the end he just quickened his pace, as if trying to keep the kid's foul mouth at bay.

A white light engulfed his figure.

Yun Jingheng lowered his head, opened his notebook, and wrote on the first line, "Elder Feng, stride length to be measured."

The second row shows a simple table – the left column is "Steps", the right column is "Dial Reading", and there is a blank column in the middle with the note "Red Line Threshold".

The handwriting wasn't as neat as usual, and holding the notebook in my left hand while writing was ultimately less stable than placing it on the table.

Wu Siduo stood beside him, tiptoeing and peering out the door.

Feng Wuyu's figure had become a small black dot in the white light. He walked steadily, neither fast nor slow, each step firmly planted on the scorched earth.

As she looked at that figure from behind, she suddenly felt a sense of unreality. Outside the door lay the ruins of a nuclear explosion, and for over 700 kilometers there was no sign of life; it was so silent that even the wind couldn't be heard.

Inside the door, Yun Jingheng leaned against the doorframe, writing down information in a notebook with his bandaged hand, his expression as calm as if he were recording a routine instrument calibration in the laboratory.

"Is this how you treat a Titled Douluo?" she couldn't help but ask in a low voice.

"It's not the first time."

Yun Jingheng didn't even look up. "When I was little, if you upset me, I wouldn't talk to anyone. It took several grown men to coax me for a long time before I stopped being angry."

"... How did you manage to live to be so old?"

"Maybe it's because he's tough?"

Wu Siduo pouted.

"Jing Heng? What are you doing?" Ya Li's slightly anxious voice came from behind.

Yun Jingheng turned his head and saw Yun Ming following closely behind Ya Li.

"Lord... Pavilion Master, Your Majesty."

Yun Ming nodded, looking at the opened door.

What's going on here?

"Measure radiation."

"Radiation test? Didn't I tell you to rest properly? Why are you still doing this?" Ya Li pulled Yun Jingheng away from the doorway and was about to close it.

"Hey, hey, don't close the door! Grandpa Feng is still outside!" Yun Jingheng tugged at Ya Li's hand.

Ya Li's hand was already on the doorframe, but upon hearing those words, she abruptly stopped.

She glanced at the vast expanse of white ruins outside the door, then at Yun Jingheng, her gaze shifting rapidly between the two before she took a deep breath.

She took a long breath, so long that Wu Siduo, who was standing next to her, unconsciously took a half step back.

She had seen Ya Li's gentle yet efficient technique when changing dressings for the wounded in the medical area, but at this moment, the aura surrounding this healing-type Super Douluo had completely changed.

"You told your Grandpa Feng... to go outside?"

"Measure radiation."

Yun Jingheng succinctly summarized the entire operation in three words.

"His Martial Soul has the strongest resistance to radiation and high temperatures, making him the most suitable candidate. I told him to take the equipment out for a walk, and come back when he reaches the red line. There's no danger. But you won't let me go out, so I have to find someone else to go."

Yun Ming walked to the door, stood beside his wife, and glanced outside.

Feng Wuyu's figure had already gone quite far, and only a blurry outline could be seen. His reddish-brown messy hair looked like a small cluster of flickering flames against the background of the desolate ruins.

"By the way, Dad, if we use Soul Tool in these ruins, will it be detected? What are the chances?"

"Not low."

Yun Ming spoke, his voice as steady as ever, "The Spirit Pagoda has deployed at least six mobile Soul Power monitoring towers within a 300-kilometer radius of Shrek City, in addition to the military's war zone and regional Skynet system."

"The Skynet has a very high accuracy in identifying Soul Power fluctuations at the Titled Douluo level, especially under the current circumstances. Surface radiation dust may interfere with the signals of ordinary Soul Tool, but it will make high-energy reactions stand out more in the background noise."

He paused, seemingly retrieving millisecond-precise data from his memory, before continuing, "Below the Soul Saint, the chances of being captured by the Skynet for short-term, low-power use of Soul Tool are slim."

"At the Soul Douluo level, if the attack lasts for more than a minute, the probability increases to a level that cannot be ignored. As for Titled Douluo, once they make a move, Skynet will lock onto the approximate area within a few seconds. The precise coordinates still need to be confirmed by ground troops, but the general range is unmistakable."

"Mobile monitoring tower..."

After he finished writing, he looked up and tapped the paper twice with the end of his pen. "In other words, their positions are not fixed."

"If we can figure out their patrol routes and deployment cycles, we can operate in the blind spots of their coverage. As long as we don't use Soul Tool near Skynet's fixed nodes, the risk of exposure can be minimized."

"What do you want to do?" Yun Ming looked at him.

"I need to create a Soul Tool that can block a large amount of radiation, so that Inner Court students can go out to carry out the plan. I also need someone to plug my USB flash drive into any of the ports."

"That way I can reverse-engineer Skynet and crash Skynet directly."

"Wouldn't that throw everything outside into chaos?" Ya Li questioned.

"We're already in this situation, I don't care about chaos, we just need to survive."