Chapter 115: The Deserter

Chapter 115: The Deserter

“General Tang, I hope you will reconsider my application more carefully.”

In Tang Tianxin’s office, Chen Feng stood with his hands behind his back, his head held high and his chest out.

Tang Tianxin stopped arranging the chessboard and said without a doubt, “Impossible. No one can inject Gene Fluid twice. It’s absurd. You’re just throwing your life away, and it would be a pointless death. Go back.”

“My life is my own to decide…”

“No, your life isn’t just yours. The Military has invested more than you can imagine to train you to this point. The free educational resources you enjoyed growing up. The cost to produce each of your meals was enough to feed an ordinary family in the Slums for a week. The wear and tear on the Starblade Armor you use for daily training, and the operating and maintenance costs of the Holographic Simulation System…”

Tang Tianxin lectured Chen Feng for a long time, sending him away empty-handed.

Chen Feng returned to his dormitory, dejected.

After making up his mind earlier, he had checked through his personal information system.

The Gene Fluid modification technology was indeed universally available, but it was also firmly controlled by the Military. The distribution and injection of Gene Fluid were strictly regulated, precisely to prevent some people from overestimating themselves and seeking a second injection.

Chen Feng’s application was undoubtedly rejected.

Later, he approached Tang Tianxin, hoping to get special treatment through the Military’s internal system.

He argued that he had never been injected with Gene Fluid, but the medical team didn’t buy it. The evaluation report still stated that he had not only been modified but also undergone a Gene Awakening.

So he was rejected again.

The next day, Chen Feng went to Tang Tianxin’s office again and submitted a discharge application, which was also rejected.

If he were still an ordinary private soldier, he could have left just like that. But now he was at the top of the comprehensive assessment ranking in the holographic simulation, a goal that countless armored soldiers looked up to and strived to catch up with.

He couldn’t leave.

Two months passed…

Chen Feng did something that shocked the Great Snow Mountain Base and all Military Camps worldwide.

After careful planning, during his first field mission, he perfectly completed the task, then chose to leave his Starblade Armor in the logistics vehicle and disappeared without a trace.

He became a deserter.

During those two months, he had prepared thoroughly. He mastered the Military’s surveillance system and pushed his personal wilderness survival skills and stealth abilities for hiding and avoiding tracking to the limit.

Despite the Military sending search teams that scoured everywhere, turning the Detectors and scanners to their maximum, they simply couldn’t find him.

Almost half a month later, Chen Feng appeared outside a dilapidated, desolate small town.

With technological progress, the advancement of urbanization, and the expansion of space stations, Earth was no longer as crowded as before.

Super-modern, fully automated agricultural machinery could completely meet human labor needs in agriculture. The agricultural population could comfortably live in cities, remotely controlling machines to handle planting and harvesting.

Now, almost everyone lived in concentrated, highly modernized mega-cities. The urbanization rate was one hundred percent.

The old small-town system had long since faded into history.

Most small towns with remaining buildings existed as cultural heritage sites, where city students occasionally came for outings and sightseeing.

But the town where Chen Feng found himself was different.

This town was located in the Jiang Province of the Zhonghua Region.

Jiang Province had always been vast and sparsely populated since ancient times, and now it felt even emptier.

The straight-line distance from this town to the nearest major city was over eight hundred kilometers.

Logically, it should have been completely abandoned, but that wasn’t the case.

It seemed desolate, but the old and rundown state applied only to the buildings, not to the liveliness.

Many people were walking back and forth in the streets and alleys, making it quite bustling.

The clothing style of the people here wasn’t as modern as in Military Camps or big cities. There were no personal vehicles floating back and forth in the air. On the ground, old motorcycles and electric bikes passed by from time to time.

Only when a large aircraft took off from the other side of the town did it remind you that this was a town in the thirtieth century.

Behind the big mountain on the inner side of the town, a large conical metal object was poking its head out.

Chen Feng recognized it. It was a large propulsion-type spaceship under construction.

This was the base of the Escape Faction, also known as the Explorers.

Freedom Town.

The logos painted on those large aircraft carrying supplies belonged to several leading global resource recovery companies.

Chen Feng rubbed his stiff face, which was stiff from wearing the disguise liquid for too long, swallowed a DNA scan interference capsule, and walked straight inside.

Besides the methods mentioned above, he was also wearing a transmission suit that could block neutrino scans, preventing his body shape from appearing on the global neutrino radar.

He had taken anti-tracking measures to the extreme.

You couldn’t blame him for being overly cautious.

The more advanced the technology, the fewer secrets there were under the Sun.

Criminals in the broad sense had long since disappeared. Almost no one could escape the Military’s tracking.

In the past decade or so, apart from Chen Feng, only one other person had managed the feat of escaping the Military’s pursuit – Lin Bu, the security captain of this very Freedom Town.

Lin Bu didn’t become a deserter as a soldier.

He was a research assistant at an institute under the Pangu Institute.

His research work was being studied as a sample.

It had been like that since he was born, until he successfully escaped at age twelve. Ten years had passed since then.

The Military pursued him a little, then eventually let it drop.

The people in the town were very warm. Even when they saw Chen Feng’s unfamiliar face, they showed no hostility. Instead, they came up to chat with him enthusiastically, trying to help this outsider integrate into the town’s atmosphere as quickly as possible.

Chen Feng booked a room at an inn, chatted casually with passersby, and then went to the town’s tavern. He used World Government credit points to buy Erguotou, which he hadn’t had for a long time.

He sat at a table by the window in the tavern, took a small sip of Erguotou. The spicy taste went down his throat, feeling particularly satisfying.

He really liked this relaxed atmosphere.

“Friend, are you new here? You look strong. You must have received basic professional military training, right?”

A young man with delicate features appeared before him and sat down, holding a white porcelain bottle of Moutai.

Chen Feng nodded, “Yes.”

“Interested in joining our Advance Team and becoming a fighter?”

The young man asked again.

Chen Feng countered, “Fight who?”

“Don’t know. We plan to rush to the edge of the Solar System and see, play it by ear. We try a rush like this every ten years. This should be the last attempt.”

The young man shrugged.

Chen Feng thought for a moment, “Does the Escape Faction all like throwing their lives away like this?”

“That’s not called throwing our lives away. It’s called striving for hope.”

“You’re all so warm to strangers? Not afraid of Military spies?”

The young man pursed his lips, “Afraid of what? Do you really think there’s anything new under the Sun? They’ve always known we exist and what we’re going to do.”

Chen Feng nodded, indicating he understood.

That made perfect sense.

Given the Military’s current level of control, if they really wanted to eliminate the Escape Faction’s living space, it would be effortless.

Like last time, one blast from the Mothership, and everything turned to dust.

The Military did not want to let their elite soldiers, who they had trained, crash into the Invader Barrier and die for nothing.

Here, some private individuals were willing to spend their own money and effort, and others were willing to risk their lives one after another, helping to collect data. The Military was happy to see it happen.

This might be a new cooperative model that evolved reasonably under a twisted social system.

At the same time, Chen Feng noticed that the Explorers were indeed somewhat different.

They seemed to be loyal followers of Sergey, believing in Sergey’s theories, so they forced themselves to become more passionate and tried harder to live like real people.

But Chen Feng knew that no matter how hard they tried, their nature was still to replace emotions with logic.

No matter how well they pretended, their essence remained different.

“I won’t join your Advance Team. I have my own plans. Lin Bu, give me a Gene Fluid. Consider it as me owing you a favor.”

Chen Feng directly called out the young man’s name.

Lin Bu slowly leaned back, his expression changing rapidly.

Chen Feng felt twisted and uneasy.

He could not imagine what it would be like for a person to decide through thinking to make different expressions.

“Captain Chen Feng, you really know how to joke.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“A favor? What can you use to repay us? Do you know what your bounty says in the Military right now?”

“What does it say?”

“You alone are worth as much as a Combat Ship.”

Chen Feng shrugged. “That cheap? I thought I’d be more valuable.”

“Stop interrupting. Right now, the Military is turning a blind eye to us, but if I give you a Gene Fluid and you die here, the Military will definitely act because we would have caused them a major loss. This is the last launch of the Explorers Spacecraft, and I won’t allow any accidents.”

As Lin Bu made his stance clear, more and more people in the tavern slowly stood up.

Many quietly placed their hands at their waists, fingers resting on their phase particle guns.

Chen Feng remained calm. “So, what do you mean?”

“If you’re willing to join the Advance Team, our people will find a way to fix your identity. But if you want the Gene Fluid, I’ll have to capture you and send you back to the Military. At least I can get some reward and resources that way. Attack!”

In an instant, Chen Feng and over twenty people in the tavern, including Lin Bu, all sprang into action.

Chen Feng’s figure turned into a ghostly blur, flickering around.

He moved left and right, up and down.

Each of his punches was powerful and heavy.

He pushed his powerful body, which could withstand 50G acceleration, to the limit.

Combined with his highly refined combat skills, except for Lin Bu, no one in the tavern could match him.

These people simply couldn’t aim at him; Chen Feng was too fast and his skills were too experienced.

Chen Feng perfectly demonstrated to these half-baked fighters of the Escape Faction what it meant to be the Military’s strongest elite.

Thirty seconds later, the large tavern was filled with knocked-out fake customers lying on the floor.

The bartender and the bar assistant were groaning and struggling, hanging on the wall or from the beams.

Lin Bu’s arms hung limp; all his weapons had already been taken off by Chen Feng.

Chen Feng delivered a straight kick to Lin Bu’s chest, sending him flying backward, smashing countless tables and chairs.

“I originally wanted to talk nicely with you, to get or buy a Gene Fluid. But since you didn’t give me a chance, don’t blame me for taking it by force.”

Lin Bu struggled to get up from the pile of debris, his face full of disbelief. “Impossible! In your evaluation system, I’m at least an S-class warrior. The gap between us can’t be this big!”

Chen Feng threw out a sentence. “A tiny difference can lead to a huge mistake. Farewell.”

With that, he flashed out of the tavern and headed straight for the back mountain of Freedom Town.

He didn’t kill anyone.

In his view, these people were quite respectable, just a bit weak.