Chapter 34: I Have a Business Deal, Like Handing Over My Property…

“I had noticed some suspicious points earlier, but I couldn’t figure out the details. So, those sand bandits this afternoon—they were your accomplices?”

Even with the shock ring locked on, the Adventure Group Captain spoke in his usual unhurried tone.

Uncle Isaiah sneered. “Accomplices? A simple collaboration makes us accomplices? They’re just a small vanguard meant to die—no match for us. Let’s go!”

He didn’t want to say more, but Antonio didn’t stop talking right away.

The Adventure Group Captain said softly, “You even deliberately let the Patrol Troops go first… So this ‘vanguard’ has a special purpose—to pass information to the sand bandits, right?”

The sand bandit camp marker on the map, quite close by.

The sudden small group of sand bandits.

They fled after a short fight.

Uncle Isaiah looked at him and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“You know so much—what’s in it for you? Do you think we’ll let you go just because of that?”

With a wave of his hand, Xie Jianxun felt the people guarding them begin to move.

They held their weapons at neck height, ready to prevent any sudden breakout.

They waited until everyone was out of the small building, standing in the open ground with nowhere to hide.

Xie Jianxun stopped and glanced down at the electroshock cuff on his wrist.

The black ring clamped tightly around his wrist, made of a special material that made its surface smooth, hiding any visible lock.

It looked utterly ordinary, but once it released electricity, the intense pain would radiate from the cuff through the whole body, leaving a person wracked with agony and drained of strength.

It carried some risk—it was an outdated model from Federation prisons, replaced now by more humane restraint devices.

Without tools, he couldn’t remove it himself… What about the others? The other repairmen?

Xie Jianxun quietly scanned the surroundings. No one made a move.

Someone shouted from the other side of the building, seemingly from the clock tower: “Hey—do we have enough stuff—”

Uncle Isaiah turned and yelled back, “Put the stuff up top first! You, you, you, and you—go move the stuff over.”

The named individuals lowered their weapons and took a couple of steps forward.

At that moment, one of the escorted hostages suddenly broke free!

He tore off his shock ring and flipped out a small knife from his palm, stabbing viciously at his companion’s wrist!

“…Damn it, can’t you aim properly?”

His companion cried out in pain!

The one who broke free said anxiously, “My hand shook—just hurry!”

As he spoke, the cut hadn’t just sliced skin—it had cracked the smooth, seemingly indestructible surface of the electroshock cuff! Shards of the broken cuff fell with blood, kicking up sand stained red.

“Someone’s trying to escape!” one of the thugs bellowed, charging over and swinging his gun butt at the man’s head!

The man crouched swiftly, dodging agilely.

In the scramble, the light from an unextinguished torch illuminated his face—it was Krimus from the Adventure Group!

He rolled awkwardly to his feet, staggering as he shouted, “Don’t kill me!” while trying to free his companion.

The Oasis Sand Bandits snapped to attention— the hostages were slipping from their control!

But they didn’t panic. Instead, they coldly raised their weapons and fired several shots toward the Joint Group’s position.

Bang—

Sand and dust billowed. The acrid smell of gunpowder seared their noses as an explosive round struck, sending one of the Joint Group members crumpling to the ground in a burst of blood like fireworks!

Mercenary Group Captain Bari gritted his teeth, nearly going berserk. “Little Gris!!!”

The only girl in his team lay on the ground, her sturdy thigh blown into a bloody mess, on the verge of passing out from the pain.

Her face was as white as paper, sweat pouring down in beads, but even so, she roared, “Don’t worry about me! Get them!”

Get them? How?

They had no weapons—the Oasis Sand Bandits had scouted and taken them all beforehand!

Bari raised his fist and smashed it into Nir’s head. The short, middle-aged man reeled from the blow, his mind buzzing as he flew two meters back.

However, the electroshock pen’s sights locked onto him—specifically, the half-broken shock ring around his neck.

A finger triggered it, sending a surge of current.

It was mostly damaged, but that didn’t matter. The neck was one of the body’s most vulnerable spots. This much electricity wouldn’t knock him out, but it was enough to sap his strength.

Bari collapsed into the sand, limbs twitching, unable to get up.

“Captain!”

Xie Jianxun’s vision blurred as blood, sand, and the stench of gore assaulted him.

The wind drowned out the shouts around him. His back went cold, and he instinctively reached for the light brain on his wrist.

Nothing there.

Sure enough, during the time the Oasis Sand Bandits had them drugged, they’d meticulously stripped them of anything that could contact the outside world, including their light brains.

“Uncle Jack, I never knew you… actually sided with the sand bandits?!”

Krimus dodged a bullet and stared at Uncle Isaiah’s weathered, deep-lined face.

He called out, “We have so many people in the Joint Group—you might not succeed! Let us go now, and you might still have…”

“No, little Krimus, you’ve been away too long.”

The young man froze, not expecting the middle-aged man to say that—an unexpected response.

Shouldn’t he threaten them like always, saying they couldn’t escape, to break their spirits?

The middle-aged man turned away, ignoring the youth’s shocked glare. He pulled a cigarette from another pocket, lit it, and took a drag.

Krimus wasn’t paying attention and got grabbed by a lean, agile Oasis resident, pinned to the ground, and fitted with a new shock ring.

“Uncle…?”

Krimus tested his arms, but the force holding them was real—he truly couldn’t move.

“God granted us new life. We no longer have to live like we did before, in that backward, ignorant way.”

Krimus blinked. “Wh-what god?”

This wasn’t part of the plan!

Uncle Isaiah looked at him with an enigmatic smile.

With a zap, the youth convulsed and collapsed, eyes shut.

No one escaped. Only the wounded lay groaning faintly on the ground.

Desert wind swept over them, the rough sand scraping faces with a faint sting.

Xie Jianxun spotted the clock tower again.

Now that the Oasis residents—who had revealed their true colors—were escorting them near the oasis, he saw the clock tower’s full shape clearly.

It looked unremarkable on the outside, like any ordinary clock tower, with an arched doorway wide enough for one person and half-open sliding glass windows.

Inside, the space was surprisingly vast.

As they spiraled up the stairs, they looked up and saw murals climbing the inner walls in a helix.

Pigments traced lines on the rough walls.

A base layer of plants, vines, yellow flowers, golden hues depicting desert edges, spreading outward.

But those fresh golds and greens eventually darkened to deep red-black, introducing winged insect-like creatures.

They swarmed in dense clusters, surrounding a massive insect at the spiral’s apex.

It dwarfed all the surrounding insects, humans, and plants combined, filling the clock tower’s dome entirely. The artwork was exquisite—even the swollen ribs on its abdomen and the attached fuzz were vividly clear.

Uncle Isaiah, leading the way, ignored them. He pulled something from his pocket, clasped it in his palm, knelt, touched his forehead to his thumb, and muttered incantations.

It was a clock tower, yet no bell hung at the top—only a strange well.

The Joint Group members were wounded or lying down; only some non-resisting logistics personnel remained intact.

Even without knowing their plans, Xie Jianxun sensed danger.

He slowly crouched, accidentally brushing the person beside him.

“Are you afraid?”

Someone leaned close, whispering into his ear.

The surroundings were already quiet; this made Xie Jianxun instinctively turn his head.

One smiled at him, shallow blue eyes calm and unruffled, as if the Oasis residents’ hijacking was no big deal. One placed a hand on Xie Jianxun’s wrist, casually stroking the seamless electroshock cuff.

But One was the most dangerous among them all.

Ordinary people recovered from electroshock with numbness and weakness via medical treatment.

For a bionic person hit by such close-range current, it might cause a direct shutdown—not to mention the inferior mechanical puppet.

…One shock—would it burn the chip?

The thought horrified Xie Jianxun. He stealthily nudged One’s shoulder and whispered his concern.

Before he finished, a new commotion erupted ahead.

Krimus, the impulsive Adventure Group member, was hoisted high by Uncle Isaiah, who scrutinized his face with cloudy eyes.

The youth had been shocked unconscious earlier but was forcibly roused, gasping for air.

He strained to roll his eyes downward and managed a weak smile. “It’s fine, Uncle. We’ve captured them all—no need to keep up the act.”

“Like before, let me fake my death and return to Golden City… wouldn’t that be good?”

Uncle Isaiah said kindly, “Yes, little Krimus, your job is done.”

The middle-aged man’s strength was surprisingly immense; he lifted an adult man single-handedly into the air.

Uncle Isaiah casually plucked a pendant from Krimus’s chest.

It was a light brain wristwatch.

He tossed it in the air and caught it, chuckling. “Well done. Plenty of stuff on it. But you won’t need it anymore—might as well give it to me early.”

Krimus couldn’t move. He finally realized—or had to face—that the plan had changed.

The youth furrowed his brow, panic finally breaking through his expression.

“Wait, Uncle, didn’t you say tie them up and send them to the fruit grove to pick fruit?”

He grabbed at the hand around his neck—it tightened, choking him.

“Uncle, Uncle!” His voice grew hoarse.

“I’ve done so much for Mase, and this is how you treat me!!!”

“…We don’t need those old backward ways to make money anymore, Krimus. Everyone needs a new life,” Uncle Isaiah said. “We’ll leave here soon and build a brand-new Mase… You should be happy for Mase.”

Krimus shouted, “Uncle, let… let go… It wasn’t like this before, you said…”

Suffocation rose; his eyes rolled back as Uncle Isaiah dragged him to the well’s edge.

But was it really a well?

Uncle Isaiah finally released his grip, letting the youth crash heavily onto the well’s rim. Then he squatted and gently stroked the bloody gash on the back of Krimus’s head.

“There, little Krimus. You know too many of our secrets. Let us become a real family.”

With that, he pulled a white candle from his pocket, lit it with a lighter, and tilted it slightly, letting wax drip harmlessly above Krimus’s face.

Nir stepped forward and heaved open the heavy black well cover.

No one peered into the well—no one could see what lay inside.

Uncle Isaiah dripped wax to stick the candle to the ground. His hands clamped Krimus’s arms like red-hot tongs, dragging him up like a sandbag.

With a mighty heave, he flung him into the well.

After a long fall, a final thud echoed from the bottom.

He lit another white candle, stuck it to the well’s other side the same way, then turned to face the Joint Group crowd.

The dim yellow candlelight cast shadows on his gaunt face, vaguely outlining fleshless bones.

“Pick another one, Nir.” He spoke slowly.

The short middle-aged man obeyed, descending the steps near the well and prowling among the Joint Group members.

Antonio straightened his back and said slowly, “What more do you want?”

“While we’re away on our long trip, they’ll get hungry.” Jack—that is, Uncle Isaiah—said confidently. “But one isn’t enough. We need another. I hope you’ll all cooperate from here on—living is better than being eaten by bugs.”

“Pick one more tender, younger…” he muttered, grabbing girls from the front row, shaking his head, and tossing them aside.

In an instant, the hairs on the back of Xie Jianxun’s neck stood on end. A pair of feet stopped in front of him, appraising him with hyena-like eyes.

The next moment, someone grabbed his shoulders with exaggerated respect and forced him to his feet.

Xie Jianxun looked up and gazed at him quietly.

Jack smiled and said in delighted surprise, “Ah, isn’t this our esteemed guest? Thank you for your generosity—take a look at this?”

He hooked a finger, and a Light Brain Wristwatch dangled into view. Xie Jianxun immediately recognized it as his missing Light Brain.

Jack continued, “I’ve got a business proposition. Please hear me out—for example, unconditionally transferring all your property to me…”

A pair of heavy shoulders shoved him aside like a small mountain. Xie Jianxun was knocked to the ground, but at the same time, that person stepped directly in front of him, blocking the way.

Magm suppressed his fury and nearly roared, “What are you going to do to my teammate?!”