The man with the holey woolen hat was speaking, but suddenly his voice was a bit out of control:

"Could he be a mutated creature?"

He remembered his previous encounter vividly, filled with fear, and once he spotted corresponding signs, he couldn't help but think in similar terms.

"He clearly has enough intelligence, definitely not a 'Mindless One', and, he looks like a human." An Ru-xiang unhesitatingly denied her companion's guess.

"What if he's just a monster, just making us 'feel' like he's a person? Think about it, that 'Higher Mindless One' before, didn't take anything out, but made us think she had unusually precious items that we had to obtain." The man with the holey woolen hat retorted, his voice slightly faster.

An Ru-xiang couldn't explain, and after thinking seriously for a moment, she said:

"Indeed, that's possible. However, there's another possibility:

"He's an Awakened, and one of his abilities leans towards charm."

The man with the holey woolen hat thought carefully:

"Now that you mention it, I think it's really possible, haha, in my mind, the Awakened are about the same as mutated creatures, no, they're more terrifying and weirder than most mutated creatures, I should say, about the same as what we encountered this time."

Most mutated creatures are closer to Black Marsh Iron Snakes and residents of Black Rat Town, with changes in certain parts of their bodies bringing certain, completely understandable enhancements.

Hearing her companion's words, An Ru-xiang couldn't help but recall this encounter.

Even after several hours had passed, with her experience and will, she still couldn't quite get over it.

It was like a real nightmare that she couldn't wake up from.

An Ru-xiang took a breath and slowly exhaled, looking back at the street they came from:

"Could they also be charmed?

"I remember when we first met them in the wilderness, there were only four of them, without that man who was suspected to be an Awakened.

"Should we remind them?"

The man with the holey woolen hat immediately shook his head:

"That's too dangerous!"

An Ru-xiang pondered for a few seconds:

"They told us the situation with the stone, returned the most important items to us, and even put the stone's body in a closed room to prevent the 'Mindless Ones' from discovering it quickly and eating him…

"To me, that's a heavy favor, something worth a lot of things."

"Didn't you share information with them?" The man with the holey woolen hat tried to dissuade her, "Don't you think, that person is wearing a military exoskeleton, even if he's not an Awakened, he can easily take care of us!"

An Ru-xiang nodded:

"Don't worry, I won't take risks, I still have to take the stone's body back.

"It hasn't been long, and they're not too far from us. I plan to just shout a few words here, as for whether they can hear it, and whether they can understand their situation after hearing it, that's not something I can control."

"Shout here?" The man with the holey woolen hat looked around, "Okay, I'll help you shout, and we'll leave immediately after shouting."

An Ru-xiang turned her body, hung up her black pistol, and cupped her hands into a trumpet shape, bringing them to her mouth.

The next second, her sharp and high-pitched voice rang out:

"He has charm!

"Be careful of being controlled by him!"

…………

Long Yue-hong was carrying a "Berserker" assault rifle, guarding his designated area while jogging on the left side of the team.

After listening to An Ru-xiang's account and Team Leader Bai Chen's discussion, he was even more afraid of this exploration. Whether it was forced sleep, real nightmares, or irresistible traps, they were a bit beyond his ability to bear, making him instinctively feel that this was not something he could handle.

If he hadn't witnessed Shang Jian-yao's "Reasoning Clown" and the mechanical monk Jingfa's "Hungry Ghost Path," Long Yue-hong felt that he might have already collapsed.

Uncontrollable fear kept growing in Long Yue-hong's heart, making him unable to help but scrutinize this operation.

Why take such a big risk... Didn't the Team Leader say that we wouldn't take us to too dangerous places before we really adapted to life in the Ashlands and accumulated enough experience... Helping Qiao Chu is indeed right, as long as he has a better impression of me... But, but, is it worth it, I'm not married yet... While jogging, Long Yue-hong looked at the figure wearing the exoskeleton device at the front, and his heart fell into a strong struggle.

Looking at it, he suddenly felt sadness welling up:

I only got to 1.75 meters after genetic modification, and I look average, and my grades in all subjects are only average, and I was assigned to the most dangerous team in the Security Department, I'm a jinx, how could Qiao Chu take a liking to me? Forget it, forget it, it's better to give up proactively...

Give up…

Long Yue-hong's eyes gradually became blurred, as if he had caught something wrong but couldn't say it.

At this moment, intermittent voices came in the wind:

"Charm… be careful… control…"

The voice was very sharp, but because of the distance, it sounded very unclear.

Jiang Bai-mian then slowed down her pace, tilted her head slightly, and said:

"What is that shouting?"

"I only heard 'be careful'." Shang Jian-yao replied with a straight face, "It seems someone is offering us wonderful blessings."

The next second, another voice came in the wind:

"Charm… be careful… control…"

This time, it was a high-pitched male voice.

"Control..." Bai Chen tried hard to distinguish.

Qiao Chu, at the front of the team, changed his expression slightly and said in a deep voice:

"We can't delay any longer, let's go."

"Okay." Jiang Bai-mian couldn't refuse.

The group of five jogged again.

Long Yue-hong was on the left side of the team, and the voice he had just heard kept circling in his mind:

"Be careful… control…

"Be careful control?

"Be careful control…"

He was startled, vaguely realizing that the current situation was a bit wrong.

He subconsciously looked back at Shang Jian-yao, who had the best relationship with him in the team.

While jogging, he saw Shang Jian-yao grinning, giving him a bright smile.

What does he mean... Long Yue-hong tried to understand Shang Jian-yao's thoughts, but failed.

He turned to recall the bits and pieces along the way, trying to find clues related to the problem.

Two or three minutes passed, and they bypassed a building and saw their destination "submerged" in darkness.

It was a building hundreds of meters high, with a large courtyard, which was extremely quiet.

Because it was still two or three hundred meters away, Shang Jian-yao and others could not see clearly what was written on the plaque lying on the ground at the entrance of the courtyard.

At this moment, Qiao Chu at the front suddenly stopped.

Immediately afterwards, his body leaned back, and with a metallic clatter, he fell to the ground.

Jiang Bai-mian and others stared in shock at this scene, subconsciously wanting to approach to confirm the problem.

Almost at the same time, the exoskeleton device made a beep beep beep sound, and all the auxiliary joints shook together.

Qiao Chu's body moved accordingly, slowly crawling up.

At this time, Jiang Bai-mian seemed to have noticed something, and holding the grenade launcher, she pulled the trigger towards the top of a roadside tree on the side.

Boom!

A fireball expanded rapidly, illuminating the ignited tree canopy and a figure leaping into the street-side building.

It was a cat-like creature, one meter long, and its body surface seemed to have no hair or skin, and the blood-red "muscles" were directly exposed.

Its tail seemed to come from a scorpion, covered with brown hard shells and barbs; at its shoulder position, clusters of white bone spurs were like decorations; on top of its head, there seemed to be four ears.

No matter how you look at it, this is not a normal creature.

The monster jumped into a room on the second floor, narrowly avoiding the explosion of the grenade, and then, it ran quickly, leaving Jiang Bai-mian's sensing range, and disappeared into the depths of the street-side buildings.

At this time, Qiao Chu had returned to normal and stood up again.

He glanced at the direction where the monster disappeared, and said in a deep voice:

"I just fell asleep.

"Fortunately, the sensing wake-up function of this exoskeleton device is good."

"Is that a monster that forces people to fall asleep?" Bai Chen reacted immediately.

"It looks like a mutated creature." Jiang Bai-mian made a judgment.

Qiao Chu didn't try to chase the cat-like monster, and pointed to the destination:

"Let's go over there."

Shang Jian-yao was the first to express his opinion, and ran towards the high-rise building with its own courtyard.

Jiang Bai-mian and others quickly followed.

"Should we give it a name?" While running, Shang Jian-yao suddenly asked.

"Who?" Jiang Bai-mian was a little confused.

"The monster just now." Shang Jian-yao said seriously, "Let's call it Ghost Cat?"

"That sounds awful." Jiang Bai-mian subconsciously denied, "Call it Sleep Cat!"

As they spoke, they arrived at their destination and came to the front of the courtyard gate.

With the help of the slightly weak starlight and moonlight, they saw the black plaque lying on the ground.

This plaque was made of stone, and it didn't look too dirty, as if it was often washed by rain or "maintained" by someone.

None of the gold characters on its surface had fallen off, and they were all in Ashlands script.

These characters formed a noun that Long Yue-hong had never heard of:

"City Smart Network Control Center"

"What is this place?" Long Yue-hong blurted out.

Jiang Bai-mian explained slightly:

"In some cities, tap water pipes, natural gas pipes, power lines, optical fibers and other miscellaneous things are integrated to form a huge smart network.

"The one that controls this pipe network is the City Smart Network Center."

"Then... why are we here?" Long Yue-hong was even more puzzled.

At this time, Qiao Chu, wearing the exoskeleton device, said indifferently:

"Around this city ruin, there is a hydroelectric power station still in operation, and there is 'maintenance'. In this city ruin, many lines are also being 'maintained' and are well maintained.

"What we need to do is enter the control center and restore power."

"Why restore power?" Jiang Bai-mian asked subconsciously.

Qiao Chu was silent for two seconds and said:

"In order to open all the doors of a laboratory."

ps: Ask for recommendation tickets, the update will be earlier at midnight~