Fog rose in the desert.
Antonio saw from the car window that a withered bush about three meters away lost its outline.
Everything outside became blurred.
It was as if everything had been covered by a layer of hazy white filter, making distant objects impossible to discern.
There was a new team member in the car, on his first mission, who had never seen such a sight before.
Now, he shrank back from the window in fear, convinced for no reason that man-eating monsters would appear outside. He turned to Antonio and asked, “Captain, what’s going on out there?”
“We’ve entered the Fog Zone.”
Captain Antonio said mildly, gesturing for everyone to turn their attention to him.
“Even if the sand bandits aren’t planning to kill us right now, we still need to stay vigilant.” He raised his voice. “The situation outside is very strange. Everyone listen up—even if you get out of the vehicle, don’t stray too far from it. Use the cars as reference points. Getting separated in the fog is very dangerous.”
Everyone was just about to acknowledge when they heard dragging footsteps approaching from outside the vehicle.
A sand bandit yanked open the car door and slid into the driver’s seat with enough force to jolt everyone inside.
From the rearview mirror, he saw the packed trunk full of people and warned them, “All of you, close your eyes. No looking, no talking!”
The passenger-side bandit hurried into the vehicle too, rubbing his hands and breathing on them. “It’s suddenly gotten a bit cold… The boss says this fog isn’t right. He wants us to stay in the cars as much as possible and not get out.”
The driver bandit grumbled, “Then I’ll suffocate to death.”
The passenger advised, “Bear with it. We’re not far now.”
As the off-road vehicle’s engine roared to life, the sand bandit felt irritated. He deliberately slammed on the brakes twice, then floored the accelerator, sending the captives in the trunk tumbling into a heap. Only when he heard their pained grunts from bumping around did he feel some relief.
He smugly adjusted the rearview mirror and continued driving forward. “You little punks, who are you glaring at?”
Captain Antonio used his shoulder to prop up the team member, letting his head rest against him steadily.
The team member beside him looked pale as iron, probably carsick and on the verge of vomiting. But the captain didn’t pull away; instead, he wiped the fellow’s mouth with the corner of his own shirt.
The people in the trunk silently sat back up, not daring to make a sound or resist.
The passenger-side sand bandit propped one leg up on the leather dashboard, then suddenly sensed something off.
“Wait a second,” he grabbed the steering wheel. “Hey, where are they?”
The Oasis Sand Bandit peered closely and cursed, “Damn, this fog is so thick, I can’t even make out people anymore!”
He fumbled hurriedly in his pocket for an old comm buckle, pressed it tight against his ear, and finally heard the boss’s voice coming through.
“…Stop immediately and regroup. This fog will scatter us…”
A sharp hiss cut through—
The sand bandit hit the brakes, jumped out of the off-road vehicle, and tied himself to it with a rope to mark their position. He scanned around for his companions.
Fortunately, they hadn’t gone far. Jack lowered his gaze and coldly counted heads.
Nir sidled up, smiling as he said, “Good thing, boss. No one’s missing, and all the vehicles are here.”
Jack murmured as if to himself, “When has the desert ever had fog this thick?”
He gazed at his companions around him—these were the truly loyal subordinates who had followed him from Mase, even burning down their former homes in that withered oasis.
This eerie fog couldn’t scatter them, nor could it bring them down.
Jack analyzed, “We can’t drive forward anymore. The radar’s malfunctioning, and the route map risks deviation. If we make a mistake and get stuck in quicksand territory, we’re done for.”
Nir: “Yeah, yeah, you’re right, boss.”
Jack ignored him, took a deep breath, and selected two people to advance on foot. They were to plant positioning markers along the sandy surface for the convoy to follow later.
The sand bandit boss stepped forward personally and tied safety ropes around them.
“This rope is two hundred meters. When it goes taut, I’ll connect the next one,” Uncle Jack said warmly. “Don’t be afraid. God’s great cause needs you to take this step forward.”
Before he could say more, their faces were swallowed up by the surging, living white fog.
“What the hell—”
From the fog, the sand bandit leader shouted, “Alert! Everyone stay put! Wait for this fog to pass!”
“What’s going on?”
The Joint Group members sat securely in the trunk, watching the fog rush toward them. They leaned back to dodge, only to realize the thick fog was blocked outside the windows.
Now, they were the safe ones inside the vehicle, while the sand bandits were exposed in the fog.
The mercenary captain leaned back comfortably against his deputy’s thigh and sneered, “Do enough bad deeds, and karma will come knocking sooner or later.”
“Shit—”
“Bang!”
A short scream pierced the fog, followed by a gunshot that reached everyone’s ears.
Then came Jack’s calm reprimand: “What did you see? Don’t move around!”
“B-Boss, there’s a bug in the fog! A huge one!”
“Keep your weapon ready. Don’t go soft in the knees at a key moment. If it’s coming, shoot it. Do I need to teach you?”
“But… it took a shot from me and didn’t die. It… it vanished…”
…
“Didn’t die. It escaped.”
The deputy retracted his long polearm and checked the distant bug burrow with a monocular scope, pursing his lips in dissatisfaction.
The Patrol Army Captain sat calmly in the landship’s driver’s seat, his expression unchanging.
“Two hundred bullseye targets when we get back. No dinner until they’re done,” he said.
“…Captain, I just had a tiny slip-up.”
The Patrol Army Captain turned his head and glanced at him. “What, you can afford a ‘tiny slip-up’ on the battlefield too?”
The deputy was stumped, unable to reply, and resentfully raised his gun again.
Two hundred bullseye targets!
By the time he finished them non-stop, his hands would be shaking so badly he couldn’t hold a fork. The captain was ruthless!
The landship convoy sped along, leaving yellow-white sand dunes behind them.
The scout ship had already detected the sand bandits’ route. Even with the wind and sand, the distinctive tracks left by these rare Desert Star vehicles on this planet weren’t easily mistaken for merchant convoy marks.
But soon, the scout ship warned of numerous bug burrows ahead.
“If I roll right over them from above, will a bunch of bugs explode out?” Xie Jianxun muttered.
Two quarters of an hour earlier, he had switched shifts with One, patting his chest and guaranteeing he could drive steadily. He had taken control of the landship.
And indeed, looking at him now.
Ignition, throttle, steering—which part screamed novice who’d just started on landships?
After neatly navigating a bend away from the quicksand zone marked on the scout ship’s radar, the little driver proudly wagged his tail, demanding the mechanical puppet praise him more.
Xie Jianxun: “You need encouragement and praise to grow better!”
One humbly took the lesson: “Yes, you’re truly adorable.”
Xie Jianxun: “…”
That didn’t sound like encouragement at all, so Xie Jianxun immediately pulled a long face and stopped talking to One.
He still remembered it—One’s rejection of his kiss must mean it looked down on childish goodnight kisses, probably laughing at him inwardly.
Right, he was still so young, while One was decades old, an antique buried in the soil. Of course they were different.
But he overlooked the mechanical puppet’s focused gaze.
It watched him intently—the golden-honey eyes, the water-red lips—its chip vibrating ceaselessly.
Anything would do, as long as that soft, delicate young master turned his face, glanced at it, and best of all, pressed those lips gently to its cheek. He couldn’t describe the feeling, but it brought peace.
“You…”
It finally parted its lips and spoke softly.
“…Can you see it? My chip log is flowing.”
It generated vast redundancies, all deleted by the information processor.
The ones it couldn’t delete later, it had no intention of deleting.
Perhaps it needed a new storage partition, dedicated to these redundancies?
“I’m driving. Don’t distract me.”
Xie Jianxun narrowed his eyes, focused on the road ahead, and said loudly, “How could I see your chip log? I don’t have X-ray vision!”
In the end, the mechanical puppet fell silent, sitting in the passenger seat without speaking.
Next time, it thought.
Next time Xie Jianxun invited it, or when he came of age.
Meanwhile, as Xie Jianxun drove, he pondered what emotion the mechanical puppet was feeling. Upset? Sulking?
After mulling it over, he found it amusing.
Could it be that it had actually wanted the kiss earlier but reacted half a beat slow?
After being misunderstood, it got upset?
He quickly realized the truth.
…No way?
Xie Jianxun sighed and said seriously, “Mr. One, come look here.”
He said to look, but didn’t specify where—just lifted his chin, as if beckoning with a finger for the other to lean in close.
The mechanical puppet instinctively leaned forward.
Seizing the moment during deceleration, Xie Jianxun swiftly planted a kiss, then beamed. “Happy now?”
A message came over the landship’s internal comms—the Patrol Army Captain’s voice, with gunfire popping in the background.
“Bug burrows ahead in large numbers. No need to slow down—full throttle, charge right through to avoid bugs dragging us down!”
Xie Jianxun floored the accelerator, slowly pressing it all the way down.
The engine roared like a beast, syncing with the Patrol Army Captain’s precautions over the comms, like a rock concert.
The speed climbed higher, faster—
Flanking landships quietly slowed and peeled off from the formation.
Xie Jianxun only caught them in his peripheral vision before they vanished.
Then came the intense rumble of cannon fire from behind, revealing what the Patrol Army Captain meant by “don’t worry about it”—immediate fire support.
Bugs and their burrows turned to ash!
“Happy.”
The mechanical puppet emitted a flat, mechanical tone.
Probably the chip memory was full, unable to process more emotions, resulting in this rigid state.
Thinking of that, Xie Jianxun chuckled. “Next time you’re unhappy, say it out loud, sir. I’m very generous…”
The mechanical puppet pointed to the other cheek. “This side too.”
Xie Jianxun: “In your dreams.”
