Chapter 111: Arrival at Emerald District

The Emerald Wall, officially known as the Emerald District Defense Wall, stands at the boundary between the Silver District and the Emerald District. To the northwest lies the bustling and prosperous Silver District, while to the southeast is a residential area exclusively for those with special abilities and their families.

The wall is primarily composed of watchtowers and concrete barriers, supplemented by electrified wire fencing charged with high voltage. It serves as a clear dividing line, artificially splitting the city into two parts, keeping the noise and filth firmly outside.

Stretching over a hundred kilometers from end to end, this inner city wall is only one-third shorter than the longest external fortification—the Western Defense Line. Its height is precisely 3.55 meters, the maximum altitude at which smoke grenade powder can remain suspended in the air after settling.

At this moment, the Emerald Wall shows extensive damage; from the broken concrete edges, one can even see claw marks left by mutated beasts.

“This wall was originally meant to prevent the smoke grenade powder from drifting into the Emerald District, so why does it seem thicker on this side?” Ji Cheng gazed downward from the balcony of a thirteenth-floor hotel nearby.

The streets closest to the Emerald Wall on the Silver District side were severely damaged; the concrete roads cracked as if shattered by force, street lamps, guardrails, and street trees lay toppled on the ground.

The newsstands facing the street had collapsed into rubble, faintly stained with blood seeping out—evidently, some civilians had been crushed and buried within.

“When the mutated beasts broke through, many civilians probably tried to scale the Emerald Wall to escape, which explains the brutal bloodshed nearby.”

The dense bullet holes on the wall, scattered firearms, spent casings, and fragments all indicated that the military had once resisted—or suppressed—the attackers.

The former was against the mutated beasts, the latter against civilians.

“Suppression seems more likely,” Ji Cheng murmured.

He lowered his tactical goggles and activated the attached thermal infrared scanner, beginning to search for signs of life nearby.

“I wonder if anyone is still alive around here. At least let me gather some intel.”

If there were survivors, he wouldn’t mind lending a hand.

—No signs of life detected.

—No signs of life detected.

...

—At 17 degrees north-northwest, 150 meters away, suspected life signs detected.

—Identifying.

—Identification result: false alarm.

“False alarm? Could it really be that everyone’s dead?”

Ji Cheng withdrew an air collector from his chest, took a gulp, and soothed his burning throat.

“Though this thermal infrared isn’t very precise, finding someone should be easy… ah, never mind.”

Suddenly, a thunderous mechanical sound disrupted his thoughts.

It was the sound of a maglev supply transport vehicle.

These trailers, embedded into the wall, could rapidly deliver fully integrated supply containers to every part of the Emerald Wall.

Unloading personnel only needed to use a wrench-like tool to unlock the container’s chain clamps, pouring out the supplies inside.

Though the military had long since vanished, the supply transport vehicles continued to carry out their duties according to protocol.

Seeing this, Ji Cheng’s eyes lit up.

“The supply transport is still running, which means the Emerald Wall’s power system hasn’t been cut off.”

Despite the extensive damage to the wall’s exterior, as long as it remained powered, its major functions could still operate.

“I’ll hack into its control system through the planetary local network access hub first.”

“Then I’ll have Shana and An Chan monitor the cameras,” Ji Cheng thought to himself. “With the data ether’s computational power, monitoring tens of thousands of cameras simultaneously is no problem.”

For humans or intelligent beings, monitoring so many cameras at once was practically impossible. Not only must they watch countless screens, but also perform real-time recognition and comparison of moving targets appearing on the monitors.

But for the data ether entities—advanced tools owned only by imperial elites—these digital devices were mere toys.

Even though their knowledge level was currently low, they were kings of the data world, utterly crushing others by rank.

So as soon as Yao Lun appeared on any of the Emerald Wall’s surveillance cameras, Shana and An Chan would instantly spot him and promptly alert Ji Cheng.

“Old Yao, you’re as good as dead. I’m waging an information war.”

The data ether’s utility was vast and its power immense—it had long been a symbol of social stratification. Even wealth couldn’t guarantee purchase; one needed status and rank.

Ji Cheng possessed two of these—an extravagant privilege.

“Hmph!”

A faint yet low voice uttered quietly.

“Let’s talk once we’re inside.”

Seeing no signs of life, Ji Cheng activated his vocal cords and emitted a sound force field around him.

Within a radius of about ten meters from his center, the air instantly fell silent.

Whether it was the rustling of falling dust or his own breathing, all were suppressed by the force field; the medium’s vibrations became nearly impossible within this range.

Ji Cheng kicked off the wall, moving like lightning past several shuttered buildings, heading toward the Emerald Wall.

More than ten minutes later,

He stood in a low, sturdy chamber, facing a massive metallic base twenty-three meters wide, laden with numerous surveillance monitors.

Given the Emerald Wall’s long, narrow structure, every thousand meters or so there was a cross-shaped monitoring station responsible for overseeing the surrounding kilometer and dispatching security personnel.

To prevent accidents, these monitoring stations were constructed with a triple-layer composite design: an outer layer of high-strength concrete, a middle lead shield layer, and an inner layer of metal fibers with good resilience and buffering capacity, capable of withstanding close-range nuclear blasts.

“This place is fairly safe. When they launch the nuke over there, I’ll just hide here and enjoy it.”

Ji Cheng activated his wrist computer, connecting it to the monitoring station’s system, then glanced at the time.

“It’s 4 PM now. Old Yao should reach the Emerald Wall before 5 AM tomorrow, but the exact time is uncertain…”

Beep—

As the wrist computer restarted, Shana and An Chan’s figures appeared on the side screen.

“How’s the knowledge digestion progressing?” he asked casually.

Shana smiled gently. “Based on those experimental conclusions, I’ve reverse-engineered quite a bit of framework knowledge. Currently, mechanical control experience bars at 7%.”

“Biogenetics at 5%, materials science at 3%,” An Chan replied coolly, each word chilling.

“Not bad, not bad. The initial stages are always slower, but once the knowledge framework is richer, the deduction speed will increase.”

Ji Cheng was quite pleased; it seemed both of them had excellent talent as data ether entities, progressing faster than he had anticipated.

“All right, pause for now. I need you to do me a favor.”

He pointed at the monitor. “I’m going to hack the master control of the surveillance system. Then you’ll help me watch for a familiar triangular-eyed man.”

“Can’t you handle these few screens yourself?” An Chan scoffed, tilting her head disdainfully.

“It’s not just these screens. There are hundreds of monitoring stations along the Emerald Wall. I can’t be sure which direction he’ll come from.”