A Chance Encounter in Another World

"But before we set off, can I make one small request?"

"What is it?" Ye Hongci leaned in slightly.

"Lend me another hundred thousand Mental Energy. I've already used up nearly nine thousand of that ten thousand, and now I only have a little over a thousand left. I doubt that's even enough to get me to the battlefield on foot." Tu Ran was upset.

Piloting a mecha consumed far too much Mental Energy. When she'd injected ten thousand earlier, her counter had shown her Mental Energy at 2%, with a sliver of green progress bar still visible. Now, the green data bar representing Mental Energy on the counter was empty.

A hundred thousand Mental Energy was nothing to Ye Hongci. She immediately injected Tu Ran with a hundred thousand, then told her to go back and rest for a day before departing tomorrow.

Tu Ran walked back to the dormitory. The entire dormitory building was empty except for her; the others were still in the simulation room practicing with weapons.

Tu Ran took a shower, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

At that time, dozens of kilometers away, at the largest detention center on the Main Planet.

"You told them about the inner core ability too?!"

"Mm."

"Are you insane?! You'll spill anything!"

"If I didn't tell them, how would they know to guard against Tu Ran? Otherwise they'd think she's just an ordinary person and get tricked by her."

"You're seriously messed up!" Young Master Qi grabbed the prison bars of the detention center, glaring at Zhou Ming in the cell across from him. "We're on the same side as Tu Ran now! If they're wary of her, they'll be wary of us too! How are we supposed to get out then?! If we can't get out, how do we find the gate and get back to the Federation?!"

Qi Tongda shook the bars in fury. If not for the bars between them, he would've lunged over to kick some sense into that idiot across from him.

Zhou Ming on the other side was half-reclined on his bed, head turned away, ignoring him.

While the two of them bickered, another group of people walked down the corridor between them.

Qi Tongda immediately recognized two people in the group wearing Pioneer Team combat uniforms.

He initially thought it was Tu Ran, but on closer look, it wasn't—it was a man and a woman.

He'd seen both of them before, when the Pioneer Team and the Executive Department had carried out the joint mission to capture Tu Ran.

The woman was named Yao Bei. According to that idiot across from him, she was formidable, strong enough to crush Tu Ran.

The man seemed to be called Ding Something Qing, and he had a good relationship with Tu Ran. During the mission to capture her, he'd worn a long face the whole time, showing zero enthusiasm.

Yao Bei was locked in the cell next to Qi Tongda's, while Ding Naiqing ended up next door to the idiot across from him.

Only after the guards left did Qi Tongda approach the bars, pressing his head against them and sticking his mouth out. "What a coincidence, Yao Bei, Ding... uh... Qing." He casually glossed over the middle character of Ding Naiqing's name, which he couldn't remember.

Both Yao Bei and Ding Naiqing approached the bars and looked at him.

Startled by those two names, Zhou Ming jumped up from the bed, ran to the bars, and pressed his face against them to look. Sure enough, it was really them. He blurted out, "How did you two end up here?"

Ding Naiqing disliked this man intensely. His eyes half-lidded, he ignored him and said nothing.

Yao Bei's gaze swept over the two of them, and she frowned. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? When did Executive Department security guards get free access to the 'gate'?"

Qi Tongda rubbed his nose awkwardly. "We were just curious and wanted to see what it was like. Besides," his confidence swelled at the thought of the inner cores, "why should the inner cores go to you Pioneers? What makes you better than us Executive Department guards? It's not like the higher-ups forbade us from going in. We can go in whenever we want."

It was just their rotten luck—they'd come in fully equipped, but instead of finding alien creatures the moment they arrived, they'd walked straight into a bunch of humans. Humans who clearly had never seen the world, dressed in shabby clothes, pointing and staring at them. The surrounding buildings were strange too, ancient and crumbling, with not a trace of the Federation anywhere.

Before he and Zhou Ming could react, a group calling themselves the capture squad came to arrest them.

The two of them were so well-equipped that letting themselves get caught would've been a disgrace to the Executive Department. So they fought back and fled. The situation was too bizarre, so they hadn't taken the initiative to shoot and kill anyone.

The only thing he was glad about now was that they hadn't killed anyone.

They quickly shook off those middle-aged and elderly capture squad members with their bad legs, but before they could celebrate, a helicopter arrived.

Then, a giant net dropped from the helicopter, covering them both. They had no idea what the net was made of, but no matter how they struggled, they couldn't break it.

Dangled from the helicopter, completely exposed, flying at an altitude low enough for everyone on the ground to see, they were carried across an entire city and delivered here. All their weapons and equipment were confiscated.

Young Master Qi had never been so humiliated in his entire life. Thank heavens there was no one in this world who knew him.

Ding Naiqing and Yao Bei had pretty much the same experience.

They'd already spent some time inside the Threshold. This time, they'd crossed through the gate intending to return to the Federation as usual. But the moment they passed through, instead of the expected array of guns and cannons, they were met with a pair of scrutinizing, curious eyes.

"What about the rest of your squad? Did only the two of you come through?" Yao Bei asked again. She remembered that the other side had been a team. When Tu Ran had been transferred from the Pioneer Team to the Executive Department, she'd joined them, and she remembered that clearly.

"We all came through," Qi Tongda said. "But only the two of us ended up together on the other side. The others' whereabouts are still unknown."

Yao Bei fell silent.

"What the hell is going on?" Qi couldn't help asking Yao Bei. He'd been racking his brain for two days without figuring it out. "I thought the Threshold was full of alien creatures? How are there humans here? Have you Pioneers been lying to us all along?"

Yao Bei: "..."

Yao Bei: "This place is probably another world."

"Another world? What's that supposed to mean?" Qi Tongda craned his neck to look at her. "Explain it clearly. We in the Executive Department don't know anything about this stuff."

Yao Bei explained patiently. "The Federation is one world. The Threshold is another. And this is yet another. The 'gate' doesn't just lead to the Threshold—it can also lead to other worlds. Right now, we're in a third world besides the Threshold."

Qi Tongda: "Have you been here before?"

"No." Yao Bei shook her head. This was the first time this world had connected with the Federation. "How long have you been here?"

"Two days," Qi Tongda answered honestly. "After your batch of Pioneers left, Tu Ran left too. More than twenty days later, the Threshold gate opened again, and that's when we came in."

"Tu Ran left?" Ding Naiqing perked up at the mention of her name. "She left the Federation?"

Before he'd left, Tu Ran had still been wanted across the entire Federation, with a net cast all around the Threshold waiting for her to fall into it.

Zhou Ming let out a cold snort, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yeah, she left. Left real well. Even bullets couldn't catch up to her."

Ding Naiqing breathed a sigh of relief.

Qi Tongda looked at him and frowned. "You two just got here?"

Ding Naiqing nodded. "A 'gate' appeared in the Threshold today. I thought it led back to the Federation, so I went in. I never expected it to be another world."

Yao Bei nodded too. "Same here. After I arrived, they sent people from the capture squad to bring me here."

Qi Tongda was about to speak when Zhou Ming cut in first. "Why didn't you two fight back?"

"Why would we?" Yao Bei countered.

"You're in a strange world, and a group of people wants to arrest you. You just stood there and let them?"

Ding Naiqing couldn't help speaking up. "Like you said, it's a strange world. You don't understand anything about the situation, and yet you made that big a scene. It's a miracle you're still standing here in one piece." He shot him a disgusted look after finishing.

They were in adjacent cells, so Zhou Ming couldn't see it.

Yao Bei looked at Zhou Ming with suspicion. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?"

Zhou Ming's eyes drifted upward. "No. We're not stupid."

Qi Tongda, who'd been interrupted, finally found his chance to speak. "Did those people ask you about Tu Ran?"

"Why would they ask about Tu Ran?" Yao Bei frowned.

"You don't know yet? Tu Ran came to this world too. Seems she's ticked off someone pretty important. We've been locked up here for two days, and the people here have been pumping us for information about Tu Ran the whole time."

"What did you tell them?" Yao Bei stared at the two of them. Her gut told her something was very wrong.

Zhou Ming shrank back, retreating stealthily.

Qi Tongda said, "I didn't say anything."

But before Yao Bei could breathe a sigh of relief, Qi Tongda pointed at Zhou Ming and blurted out, "He told them everything."

Yao Bei glanced at Zhou Ming, her voice cold. "What exactly did you tell them?"

"The inner cores. The abilities. He told them all of it." Qi Tongda said matter-of-factly.

"Idiot." Ding Naiqing's furious voice came from the next cell.

Zhou Ming forced himself to stay calm. "Even if I hadn't said anything, someone else would have. That guy two cells down, and the one three cells past yours—" he stuck his hand through the bars, pointing in various directions, "—they'd already spilled everything about the Federation long before we got here. They even told them about the Threshold creatures. I just happened to mention the inner core thing, that's all. They tricked it out of me."

Qi Tongda crossed his arms with a cold laugh. "Didn't you just say it was to keep Tu Ran from getting off easy? Ha. Turns out you're just too dim-witted and got played into spilling the beans. Now you're making excuses to save face." He wore the expression of a man who'd seen right through him.

"Qi, you dog! Shut up!" Zhou Ming gnashed his teeth, his face flushing red.

Qi Tongda rolled his eyes, couldn't be bothered with him anymore, and looked toward Yao Bei. "What should we do? Staying locked up here forever isn't a solution."

Yao Bei approached the bars and looked around. "How many of our people are here?"

"Counting you two, seventeen or eighteen," Qi Tongda said. "And that's just counting the ones locked up here. Who knows about the other detention centers. The other four from our External Affairs Group Nine are still missing, and I don't know if they're alive or dead." As he spoke, he slid down against the bars, squatting low, and let out a sigh.

"Don't worry. The people here have been fairly hospitable to us. If your teammates made it to this world too, they shouldn't be in any danger." Yao Bei offered some words of comfort.

"Let's hope so."