Chapter 635: Prisoner
"Mr. Liang Wenzhe." Behind the stumbling beggar, a young man holding a briefcase whispered with a hint of nervousness.
However, the old beggar, a bag of food in his left hand and a pot of wine in his right, seemed utterly deaf to the voice behind him, still walked on, head bowed, absorbed in his own world.
"Mr. Liang! I need to speak with you!" The young man seemed to be doing this job for the first time, his words still betraying a hint of nervousness.
The old beggar remained oblivious.
"Liang—Wen—Zhe!" Seeing that the old man was about to step into a gloomy alley, the young man lunged forward, disregarding the dust and grime on the old man's clothes, and directly grabbed hold of him.
However, after being grabbed, the old beggar continued to walk two more steps, only then realizing that he seemed to have been caught by something.
He opened his half-closed, drunken eyes and turned to look at the young man behind him.
"You... looking for me?" The old man exhaled a foul breath of alcohol.
"Yes, Mr. Liang Wenzhe, our company formally invites you to join us on a mission." The young man stated his request without any preamble.
"We're from the Rhys Security Group..."
"Never heard of it."
"..."
Lost in his own world, the old beggar no longer paid attention to the young man behind him who was still trying to formulate his words, and continued walking forward alone.
"Mr. Liang, I know the car accident affected you deeply, but we can give you a chance to start over!"
"Can you bring the dead back to life?" The old man abruptly threw his wine bottle to the ground, then, with a strength that seemed to come from nowhere, grabbed the young man's collar.
"Please calm down, the dead cannot be brought back to life, but our company is willing to give you a Six-Revolution Soul Elixir as compensation, which can restore your physical functions to the state of a thirty-year-old."
"What's the point of that!"
"Find another wife, and have a bunch more children."
According to the company's information, the young man learned that Liang Wenzhe's wife and only son both died in a car accident when he was in his early sixties, leaving behind an old man who had lost all hope and suffered a mental breakdown, which was why he started living on the streets as a vagrant.
"Take this, and start your life anew. If your wife and son know of it in the afterlife, they wouldn't want to see you continue to be so dejected." The young man, with a hint of greed in his eyes, took out the Soul Elixir the company had prepared in advance and reluctantly handed it to the old beggar.
An elixir that could extend one's life by several decades was simply a fatal temptation for ordinary people who couldn't cultivate.
If it weren't for his fear of the company's pursuit, he would have thought of taking the medicine and running away.
Even if he didn't use it himself, he could sell it on the black market for tens of millions of Federation credits, enough to live a carefree life.
......
"Alright, tell me, what do you want this old bag of bones to do?"
After several minutes of silence, the old beggar wiped away the tears streaming down his face, took the Soul Elixir handed to him by the young man, and carefully tucked it into the inner pocket of his ragged clothes.
"Operate a specialized spirit energy device, and escort a batch of special items."
Before he became like this, Liang Wenzhe was once an expert in operating spirit energy equipment, proficient in the use of various cutting-edge devices, but only after losing his wife and son in his old age did he completely abandon himself.
Spirit energy equipment, primarily spirit energy power armor, was the main way for ordinary people to gain strength comparable to that of mid to low-tier Ability Users.
Currently, the Federation's most cutting-edge power armor available to ordinary people, without equipping self-destructing weapons (like nuclear arms), achieved a rating of 3-1, or Level 31, in the power assessment system, barely enough to contend with Third-Tier cultivators.
As for mass-produced soldier-grade power armor, their combat power mostly ranged between Level 15 and 25.
Of course, none of this was very relevant to Liang Wenzhe's mission; what he was meant to operate was a gigantic sealing device.
......
"Boss, isn't this mission... a bit strange?" After sorting out Liang Wenzhe's matter, the young man returned to the Rhys Security Group headquarters to report.
"Proceed as planned." The middle-aged man sitting in the executive chair waved away the young employee, who had also noticed the issue, and didn't allow him to say anything more.
......
"I must have been completely blinded by greed! I actually didn't notice that so many large security groups would rather lose money than dare to take this order. But the temptation of six billion Federation credits, who could resist that..."
The boss of Rhys Security had participated in a bidding for a major business deal half a month ago; it was a massive order worth six billion Federation credits, roughly two years of his company's income.
But strangely, the major security groups, traditionally industry leaders, had all given up on this bid. Seeing an opportunity to pick up a forgotten treasure, Rhys Security had exerted all its effort to take on the order.
"It's just transporting a group of tightly secured prisoners... As long as the plan is well executed, nothing will go wrong." He took a gulp of iced vodka and constantly reassured himself.
The mission they had received was to assist in transferring prisoners originally confined in the Geocentric Grand Prison to a prison battleship specially built by the Federation.
A flagship suspended alone in space would become the new abode for the Federation's medium to heavy criminals serving five years or more. Those imprisoned inside would have no hope of escape, because they were surrounded by space...
Even if, by some incredible stroke of luck, they managed to escape and happened to be powerful enough to survive in space, without cover, facing overwhelming firepower, it would still be a dead end.
......
"Is this giant iron ball the original body of the Geocentric Grand Prison?" On the day of the escort's departure, the young man, who had also departed on the transport ship, gazed at the colossal sphere under heavy guard and exclaimed.
"A masterpiece of craftsmanship." Liang Wenzhe, operating the machinery beside him, stared intently at the black sphere as if revering a divine miracle.
After taking the elixir, Liang Wenzhe had tidied up his appearance and now looked no different from a mature man in his thirties.
......
The black sphere, with a radius of over ten meters, was the main body of the Geocentric Grand Prison and contained seven layers of space within.
The outermost layer was the prison's administrative area, while the second to sixth layers housed prisoners of increasing severity. As for the final seventh layer, apart from knowing such a thing existed, outsiders knew nothing else.
The entire grand prison was a dark corner where human rights were non-existent, and information to the outside world was almost completely sealed off.
"Where's the warden who's supposed to handle the handover with us?" The boss of Rhys Security, also present, looked around several times but couldn't see anyone wearing the grand prison warden's uniform.
"The warden won't come out; he's needed inside the prison to oversee the big picture. Everything outside is my responsibility." A beautiful woman with a fiery figure and equally fiery attire appeared silently behind the Rhys Security boss.
P.S.: I'm really not driving.
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