Genius Club

Chapter 97: Chapter 94: Taste (Extra for our alliance leader who has two precious cats)

The slender girl in black approached Lee Cheng, took off her mask, revealing a beautiful face that resembled the woman next to her—it was clear they were mother and daughter:

“Dad, this mask is uncomfortable. Where did you put the one from yesterday?”

Lee Cheng patted his daughter’s head and chuckled:

“The one from yesterday was ruined by your sister… You really have a keen eye, though. I secretly swapped it for an identical one, and you still noticed.”

The girl snorted with laughter:

“The mask may be identical, but can the tightness of the elastic band be the same? I could tell something was off the moment I put it on.”

“Hahaha, your sister is mischievous; there’s nothing we can do. Forgive her.”

The girl put the mask back on and turned to look at Lin Xian, sizing him up:

“This is…?”

Big Face Cat stepped forward and introduced:

“Ning Ning, this is my new protégé, Lin Xian! His physical skills are on par with yours! He scales walls with such agility that you won’t have to climb by yourself anymore; now you have a partner!”

Having said that.

He turned his head to look at Lin Xian:

“Lin Xian, this is Boss Lee’s eldest daughter, Lee Ningning, a key member of our operations. We rely on her to climb the wall and steal… The rest of us are just responsible for forming the human ladder and handling the transport.”

Lee Ningning walked over and extended her hand to Lin Xian:

“Hello, Lin Xian.”

“Hello.”

Lin Xian shook hands with her.

Just a moment ago… Lin Xian really thought it was CC who had come out.

The main reason was that Lee Ningning’s Ultraman mask was so misleading… Their figures were quite similar, and with the black bodysuit accentuating her shape, it was easy to mistake her for someone else at first glance.

Upon closer inspection, there was a slight difference in their hair color.

CC’s hair, like Chu Anqing’s, was a deep brown; whereas Lee Ningning’s hair was jet black.

In appearance, Lee Ningning looked more mature and alluring, a spitting image of her mother; while CC and Chu Anqing, with their pure and youthful faces, resembled naive young girls who hadn’t yet been touched by the world.

Lee Ningning’s hands were a bit rough, feeling gritty to the touch, lacking the softness usually found in young girls. It seemed she must have done her fair share of manual labor… which didn’t quite fit her status as the daughter of a wealthy family.

“Are you sure you can handle it?”

Lee Ningning looked at Lin Xian:

“The perimeter wall of the Waste Treatment Plant is over eight meters high. The human ladder they can form reaches about five meters at best. We still need to climb an additional three meters on our own… Usually, this task is done by lightweight girls. Are you… really up for it?”

Lin Xian nodded, reassuring her.

Although he didn’t know what martial arts Lee Ningning practiced, for a parkour expert, using momentum and jumping ability to scale an uneven wall with a height of three meters was no difficult task.

“Alright, everyone!”

Lee Cheng clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention and said with a serious expression:

“Let’s go! Be safe!”

…

Boom—

A van drove along a dirt road, approaching New Donghai City in the distance.

Big Face Cat and his three underlings sat in the first two rows, while Lin Xian and Lee Ningning sat in the last row.

As they drew closer to New Donghai City, the grandeur of the towering steel wall became increasingly palpable to Lin Xian.

A wall over two hundred meters high, splitting the world in two.

The road was quite bumpy.

Lin Xian and Lee Ningning, sitting in the back seats, swayed from side to side, occasionally bumping shoulders, and the scent from Lee Ningning’s body wafted into his nose.

It was…

Lin Xian inhaled it into his nostrils.

It was “Rose Fragrance.”

Lin Xian was unsure if it was the scent of a skin cream, shampoo, or hand cream… but he was certain of the rose fragrance.

He himself worked for a cosmetics company and was very familiar with all kinds of floral scents. He could identify the type with just a sniff.

In the cosmetics field, this could be considered a basic skill. Almost everyone at MX Company had this ability, just like how upon seeing the color of a lipstick, the shade number would automatically come to mind.

“We’re here, get out!”

Big Face Cat parked the van on a small hill and had everyone get out.

There was still about a kilometer to the towering steel wall. They could vaguely make out the black smoke rising from the Waste Treatment Plant below the wall…

Big Face Cat handed Lin Xian a pair of binoculars and explained the situation around the Waste Treatment Plant to him:

“All the waste treatment plants are fully automated. There’s only one supervisor in charge, right there—”

Lin Xian followed his direction and, indeed, saw a uniformed figure in the control room in the middle of the waste treatment facility.

“Other than that one living person, everything else is handled by robots. This includes patrolling, transportation, incineration, transfer, sorting, loading, and so on… all done automatically by robots and machinery.”

Lin Xian nodded his head.

Moving the binoculars, he could see the various busy robots and equipment inside the Waste Treatment Plant, evidently all automated.

This didn’t surprise him.

He had previously wondered about New Donghai City, a city walled with steel and completely isolated from the outside world… where did their food come from? Where did their raw materials and daily necessities come from?

Later, he figured it out.

This was 600 years later; he couldn’t think about problems with the mindset from 600 years earlier.

Even in the year he came from, 2023, many factories and farms had already achieved full mechanical automation. It only took a symbolic shift by one worker to ensure the normal operation of a factory.

In the face of such powerful productive forces, perhaps there was no need for such a large labor force.

“There are a total of six drones patrolling fixed routes above the wall. In extreme conditions… about every 40 minutes, there’s about a minute of blind spot in the surveillance; 12 minutes after that, there’s another 30 seconds of surveillance gap.”

“So, Lin Xian, you and Lee Ningning will need to climb over the wall during this one-minute blind spot, then climb back over during the 30-second blind spot after 12 minutes. Don’t worry, when you climb back out at the usual spot, the four of us will be there to catch you, you won’t get hurt.”

Big Face Cat continued explaining:

“Besides the six patrolling drones, the automated robots inside are like blind people, only working according to their programming, so you don’t have to worry about being discovered by them.”

“But that supervisor will see you, so we must take advantage of his shift change between 00:00-00:20 to steal the stuff.”

“So combining both times… the safe time for theft is from 00:04-00:05 to climb in, and from 00:17:00-00:17:30 to climb out!”

“Do you understand?”

Lin Xian nodded his head…

All this planning really wasn’t easy.

All this trouble to steal, and they could only do it for 12 minutes.

“`

And this theft couldn’t be done in a big, flashy way. They had to throw the items over the perimeter wall, after which Big Face Cat and his crew would hide the thrown items in the woods before finally moving them collectively into the van and taking them away.

When climbing in, they needed to form a human wall.

There was no need for a human wall when climbing out, though, because they placed a lot of non-combustible trash near the wall, which was piled high enough to allow him and Lee Ningning to climb and jump over.

“The plan is very meticulous,” Lin Xian praised.

“Hehe, we’ve been executing it for years without a single mistake!”

Big Face Cat laughed proudly:

“That’s the trouble with machines. They’re powerful, sure, but too standardized. Everything can be calculated.”

“However, there are always unexpected situations.”

Big Face Cat handed Lin Xian a whistle and blew into it, producing a sound like the hurried chirps of a bird:

“You hear that? Remember, whenever you hear this sound, retreat immediately and climb over the wall. Don’t worry about anything else, just run, and regroup at the top of this hill.”

“Whether it’s me blowing it or anyone else, the moment you hear it, run up without hesitating.”

He patted Lin Xian on the shoulder:

“Stay safe and be cautious. Better to retreat temporarily than to take risks.”

…

The group stealthily moved through the woods, gradually nearing the Waste Treatment Plant.

The closer they got, the louder the roar of the high-temperature incinerator.

Lin Xian didn’t know how hot the blue flames actually were, but they seemed much higher than the incinerator temperatures he was aware of.

They jogged along.

Big Face Cat looked back:

“Hm? Where’s Ning Ning?”

Lin Xian also turned his head and realized Lee Ningning was nowhere to be seen.

She had been right behind him just a moment ago.

“Boss, Ning Ning is over there,” Ah Zhuang pointed out Lee Ningning who was far behind the group.

Big Face Cat waved his hand:

“Move it, move it. Keep up and run faster.”

Quickly.

Lee Ningning, dressed in black and wearing an Ultraman mask, caught up with them.

Now at the high wall of the Waste Treatment Plant, Big Face Cat looked at his watch, advising Lin Xian:

“When stealing, remember the priorities I told you about before: if there are any books, you must take them; then electronic products; the rest, follow the order I’ve told you before…”

Lin Xian committed this to memory, then looked up at the wall in front of him.

The height was indeed around eight or nine meters, which would be impossible for an average person to scale, to say nothing of the six drones patrolling in the air.

However, due to their travel route and speed, blind spots in the surveillance and intervals of time without coverage were indeed possible.

Big Face Cat watched his wristwatch.

He also kept an eye on the two surveillance drones in the air, crossing and separating…

[00:04]

“Now!”

The blind spot in surveillance appeared!

Big Face Cat accelerated and ran, propping up his sturdy body directly under the high wall!

“San Pang!”

San Pang stepped on Big Face Cat’s shoulders with a leap, his arms also propped against the wall.

“Ah Zhuang!”

Ah Zhuang climbed up like a ladder onto San Pang, feet on his shoulders, and continued to build the human tower.

“Er Zhuzi!”

As the final link in the human tower, Er Zhuzi, light as a swallow, climbed onto Ah Zhuang’s shoulders, adding another person’s height to the tower.

“Human tower is ready!” Big Face Cat, his face red from the strain, shouted:

“Ning Ning, you first!”

Lin Xian turned to look, and the Ultraman-masked Lee Ningning nodded and started sprinting!

Lee Ningning was fast… Her slender figure, combined with explosive power, was like a cheetah, like a swift. She whizzed past Lin Xian, brushing by him—

The scent on her trailed in the breeze and infiltrated Lin Xian’s nostrils…

[The delicate fragrance of camellias].

Lin Xian had a keen sense of smell and immediately identified it.

Hm?

He took another deep breath!

[The scent had changed!]

[It wasn’t the scent of Lee Ningning!]

[That woman wearing the Ultraman mask! It wasn’t Lee Ningning!]

“Hey!”

Lin Xian was about to warn Big Face Cat and the others.

But the “Ultraman” who dressed identically to Lee Ningning bounded over the human ladder like a rabbit on springs and successfully scaled the wall.

“Brother Lian! That’s not—”

“Hurry and climb, Lin Xian! There’s no time left! The drones are coming!”

Big Face Cat, his face beet red, interrupted Lin Xian:

“Climb now!!”

Lin Xian gritted his teeth!

He picked up speed in his run, then climbed and leaped, grabbing onto the wall cracks and quickly scaled over it!

Thud.

He landed stably on a pile of old furniture.

Click!

Behind him…

A gun was pressed against the back of Lin Xian’s head!

“`