33. Powerless Mechanical Limbs

In the night, Qing Chen quickly scaled the low walls of two courtyards, moving through the environment he knew best.

In an instant, the entire layout of Courtyard Four appeared in his mind like a three-dimensional holographic image.

The autumn wind was cool, carrying a bit of the day's lingering heat.

The next moment, the young man silently calculated the pursuer's sprinting speed...

No, I have to be faster!

Qing Chen felt his lungs burning, his blood boiling.

Suddenly, he stopped in the shadows of a corner.

And held his breath.

The plane tree leaves rustled in the wind, their shadows swaying on the ground.

The sound of running footsteps nearby, the extinguished lights of houses.

None of it mattered anymore.

3.

2.

1.

Now.

In the darkness, the young man swung the entrenching tool with all his might at the empty air beyond the corner.

With a thud, the charging middle-aged man was hit at the legs and tumbled forward!

Qing Chen didn't spare the man another glance. Instead, he turned and quickly vanished into the shadows of the buildings, a hit-and-run.

Only after he was gone did the middle-aged man's screams echo through the entire complex. Countless windows lit up as people looked out, only to see the assailant clutching his leg and wailing.

The middle-aged man's right leg was broken, and blood flowed profusely.

Slowly, many people gathered at their windows to watch the commotion. They could only see the assailant, but Qing Chen was nowhere to be found.

Even the assailant hadn't figured out what had happened.

When Qing Chen returned to Jiang Xue's home, he found her holding a trembling Li Tongyun. Qing Chen asked, "Is Xiao Yun hurt?"

"She's just scared. I'm calling the police now to let them handle them."

"No need, I already called," Qing Chen said.

Hearing his voice, Li Tongyun looked up, her eyes teary, and said, "Brother, one of them got away."

"Don't worry, I found him," Qing Chen replied.

At this moment, Jiang Xue noticed the crack in Qing Chen's hand from the entrenching tool. She suddenly realized he must have encountered the assailant and even had a direct confrontation.

However, after observing Qing Chen for a long time, she found no other injuries besides the crack on his hand.

"Your hand is split. Wait a moment, I'll get you some gauze and iodine," Jiang Xue said.

"Still just a normal person," Qing Chen thought, looking down at his hand. He lamented that he had a powerful mind but not a body to match.

He had to speed up his progress in gaining abilities in the Inner World!

"Don't bother, Aunt Jiang Xue," Qing Chen said. "I have some at my own place."

By now, neighbors who had heard the commotion had come out. They hadn't dared to intervene earlier, but now that the noise seemed to have subsided, they felt it was safe.

Seeing more and more people gathering, Qing Chen quickly said, "The police will be here soon. I'm going back inside. Remember, I wasn't involved in anything tonight."

Jiang Xue hesitated for a moment. "Okay."

The noisy discussions outside the window, the wailing of police sirens, and the sounds of footsteps coming and going seemed to have no effect on Qing Chen.

He lay on the bed, lost in thought. The moment he swung the entrenching tool today felt like him embracing a brand new life.

Qing Chen chased after the assailant for two reasons. One, he couldn't accept that children like Li Tongyun would be harmed.

The other was that he felt if he didn't even have the courage to do this, then he shouldn't even aspire to a life in the Inner World.

He slowly drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by a knock on the door.

Qing Chen groggily opened the door. Li Tongyun stood outside.

"Brother Qing Chen, can you come to my house for a bit?" Li Tongyun asked timidly.

"What's wrong?" Qing Chen asked, puzzled.

"Please help my mom quickly," Li Tongyun said urgently.

Qing Chen went upstairs and saw Jiang Xue sitting helplessly at the dining table, her arms hanging limply at her sides.

"Are you injured?" Qing Chen asked.

"No, it's not an injury," Jiang Xue replied. "...My mechanical limbs are out of energy."

This time, Qing Chen was truly stunned. He had never really thought about the operating mechanism of the mechanical limbs, only assuming that the Inner World possessed some kind of black technology, like hidden antimatter reactors or something similar.

But she hadn't expected that Jiang Xue's overuse of her mechanical limbs yesterday would directly cause them to stop working.

Simply put, they were out of power...

"Wait, its durability is that bad?" Qing Chen asked in confusion. "How do people in the Inner World support high-intensity combat?"

Jiang Xue explained, "You haven't been there, so you don't know. The entire Inner World has undergone an energy upgrade to wireless charging. You can see the cooling towers of nuclear reactors on the outskirts of the city, and all the electrical energy they produce is supplied to the entire city through 'Cloud Flow Towers' distributed in various places."

"In the Inner World, whether it's vehicles, communication equipment, mechanical limbs, rice cookers, or lights, 90% of electronic devices have bid farewell to wired transmission, and so has the network. It's like a giant WiFi covering the entire city."

"Everyone has their own paid serial number, just like an ID number. As long as they pay monthly, they can enjoy a convenient life. The consortium charges based on each person's electricity consumption."

"In City 18, there are probably over three hundred Cloud Flow Towers operating at full capacity, so people there no longer have the concept of 'charging' because everyone's devices are constantly charging."

Wireless charging? Qing Chen wondered. Wasn't that the dream of scientist Nikola Tesla?

At this moment, Qing Chen's academic identity came into play. He quickly analyzed it.

The essence of charging is energy transfer. In fact, the Outer World also has such technology. For example, Xiaomi's new product can achieve long-distance wireless charging, covering an entire room.

The reason Xiaomi can achieve wireless charging is the breakthrough in rectification technology and positioning technology, precisely capturing the millimeter waves transmitted by the charger.

Of these two technologies, positioning technology is the most important. Otherwise, the charger would transmit spherical waves instead of precisely delivering them to the phone.

In short, without positioning, the charger would be an open "microwave oven."

That would be terrifying.

And the technology in the Inner World must be different from the Outer World. At least the technological level must have broken through many layers.

Would this thing be harmful to the human body? The answer is negligible, because the radiation it disperses is even less than that of a mobile phone.

As long as its positioning technology is advanced enough, there will be no impact.

Of course, Qing Chen hasn't specifically researched the transmission principles of the Inner World, so he's not sure if they've realized Tesla's dream or if it's similar to the current wireless charging technology in the Outer World.

However, no matter which it is, being able to achieve comprehensive wireless charging is quite novel.

At this moment, Li Tongyun suddenly asked, "Will this wireless charging have radiation? Last month, an old man and an old woman in the neighborhood forced the mobile company to dismantle the signal tower. Will this radiation be greater than that of the signal tower?"

Jiang Xue hadn't thought much about it before, but after Li Tongyun mentioned it, she also became a little worried. She asked, "Many public accounts have said that even mobile phone radiation is very harmful to people. Will these Cloud Flow Towers affect our health?"

Indeed, there were too many public accounts explaining the harm of radiation.

Many people actually believed it and even pulled down base stations and signal towers of several communication providers...

Qing Chen thought for a moment and said, "The amount of radiation varies from person to person."

"What do you mean?" Li Tongyun asked, confused.

Qing Chen thought for a moment and said, "The lower your education level, the greater the radiation."

Li Tongyun: "???"

Jiang Xue: "???"

Thanks to the student Xie Ri Guai for becoming the alliance leader of this book. The boss is generous, and the boss will have boundless fortune and longevity!

Also, are there any other bosses who want to receive my blessings of long life?