Chapter 173

Back to Lin Tu and the others.

They had narrowly missed the army entering the third floor and now made their way toward the second floor of the Ring Building.

Ever since Lin Tu mentioned that the infected in the research institute had high intelligence, the team's paranoia had reached its peak, constantly playing mental games with the "air" around them. Destroying surveillance cameras, covering their tracks, counter-surveillance, counter-reconnaissance...

God knows how complicated Lin Tu felt when Luo Yongzhi blurted out, "Could it be carrying a pinhole camera?" at the sight of a zombie. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to worry about it acting as a suicide bomber at a time like this?

But the players soon discovered that all their clever maneuvering was useless.

Because on the path from the first floor of the Ring Building to the Main Ship, they encountered unprecedented resistance. Or rather, this area had already been taken over by the infected. As long as they tried to pass through, the infected would know. Their earlier attempts to conceal their tracks seemed somewhat redundant.

"Not entirely redundant, though. At least we can stand here safe and sound. If we'd been chased in by those monsters..." Luo Yongzhi muttered. "I definitely wouldn't have made it out alive."

"No wonder so many workstations on the first and second floors were destroyed—they must have moved all the materials here." Even Yi Ying, a complete mechanical novice, could find some semblance of familiarity in these disgusting, twisted devices.

"But I have to say, she's a genius." Kou Lin looked up at the complex passageway—

It was a passage inclined sixty degrees upward. The original stairs and elevators had been completely destroyed, leaving only a chain of humans connected together like centipedes. It wasn't hard to imagine that if any non-infected tried to reach the Main Ship through this passage by stepping on these people's shoulders, they would be torn to shreds.

Besides that, Kou Lin could see many other horrifying improvisations.

For instance, heads fitted with surveillance cameras hung from above—whenever someone entered, the head would swivel to record the intruder. Spray guns originally meant for cleaning and disinfection had been repurposed into towers, with infected wielding blood sprayers standing atop them, patrolling in all directions. They also spotted five or six of those bird-men that had attacked Guan Suixing earlier, plus torture devices designed to satisfy the infected's sadistic tendencies—like an infected strapped to a skinning machine, with a dedicated flayer tending to it...

A single glance made Kou Lin feel her sanity plummeting. This bloody carnival was simply not something a normal person could stomach.

"Wait..." Kou Lin retreated behind the others, clutching her stomach and dry-heaving.

"We can't get through." Lin Tu quietly closed the maintenance passage door. Once the group had moved to a slightly farther spot, she said, "We need to find another way."

"Where?"

Lin Tu pointed at the floor. "Here."

Where was here? The group looked up in confusion, seeing only the iron floor.

Then Lin Tu's actions turned strange.

She pulled out a pile of tools from her backpack—tools that looked familiar yet unfamiliar—and deftly manipulated them, crouching down to unscrew bolts.

Yi Ying didn't disturb the focused Lin Tu. She nudged Kou Lin with her elbow. "What's Sister Lin doing?"

Kou Lin: "..." Now the pressure was on her. The problem was, she had no idea either.

The group's strange gazes darted between Lin Tu and Kou Lin: Wait, seriously... who exactly was the doomsday mechanical engineer here?

After Lin Tu finished unscrewing the bolts, she thought for a moment, then tossed them into her backpack. The bolts on the ship were finely crafted and valuable indeed.

After removing the screws, she also threw the detached cover panel into her backpack.

The ship's design was vastly different, and though the spacecraft manufacturing level in Lin Tu's own world was inferior, the underlying principles were largely the same.

Lin Tu quickly found the trick and successfully delivered the group to the maintenance passage. Then she led them around for a while before finding another small passage leading to the Main Ship in an unremarkable side branch.

The players: "???"

"Good thing that infected probably didn't know about this passage," Lin Tu remarked.

The players: "???" Where had she brought them? They didn't know about this passage either!?

"Where is this?" Kou Lin asked after habitually disabling the surveillance cameras, while the others looked at Lin Tu with wide eyes.

"A premium passage. That's where the very, very rich people go. I figure the infected killed all of them, so no one was left to swipe cards and use it. That's why they never touched this passage."

The group looked bewildered. Then how did she know about it?

"That's all thanks to Kou Lin. I saw it in a local TV drama from the files on her USB drive," Lin Tu said, holding back the title *The Billionaire Fell in Love with Me*. "The drama didn't show the entrance here, but it made me aware this passage existed, so I tried dismantling the maintenance passage to get here. Turns out they're connected. Lucky, I suppose."

The players didn't know what to say. Should they comment on how she still had time to watch TV dramas? Or on how well that drama-watching had paid off?

Kou Lin, on the other hand, spotted a business opportunity. Her eyes gleamed as she followed Lin Tu forward.

After about ten minutes, they reached the end. Here, swiping a card would grant access to a dedicated passage connecting to the Main Ship, but they had no cards.

Lin Tu made full use of her spaceship maintenance knowledge—learned about seventy or eighty percent and soon to be forgotten—and continued dismantling potential doors in the passage that might lead outside.

The premium passage was lavishly decorated, but Lin Tu still managed to find a viable route.

She crouched down, had just unscrewed a bolt and pried off the soundproof panel, when she heard rustling sounds from behind.

Lin Tu cautiously poked half her head out and saw a spray-gun infected standing in the group's path, staring blankly into space.

"Shh." She turned and raised a finger to her companions.

Then Lin Tu popped a blueberry, activated the Lighthouse skill, and in an instant relocated behind the infected. She raised her broken blade and effortlessly cleaved the infected in two. To muffle any noise, she also tossed a wire mesh on the ground to dampen the sound.

Everything was going unusually smoothly.

Just as Lin Tu was thinking that, an alarm blared from above.

"Intruder detected! Intruder detected!"

"Damn! It's a sensor system!" Kou Lin shouted. "That infected was rigged with a sensor—when it falls, it triggers an automatic alarm!"

Lin Tu: "..." A bit late for that, don't you think?

"Go!"

The players vaulted over the infected and sprinted forward.

Almost immediately, more spray-gun infected flanked them from the sides, holding their sprayers and staring at the group with excitement. It was only then that Lin Tu noticed they all wore cleaner uniforms. They must have used those sprayers to clean dirty places in their previous lives.

—"Filth! Filth! You must be cleansed!"

A jet of unnervingly thick, disgusting blood shot toward Lin Tu. She lunged backward, barely dodging the spray, her heart skipping a beat in fright.

A mop smeared with filth kills whoever it touches. Though the cleaners weren't particularly formidable in combat, the players were genuinely terrified of getting infected!